IOWA CITY, Ia. — Soon after Iowa's university students returned to campus this fall, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders was there.

Sanders, of Vermont, is the first Democratic presidential candidate to swing through Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa this semester. Younger caucusgoers fueled his 2016 surge against Hillary Clinton — one estimate showed 84% of the under-30 crowd backed him.

At the start of each event this week, a speaker implored the crowds — 500-plus in Ames, 1,350 in Iowa City and nearly 600 more in Cedar Falls, according to the campaign — to raise their phones in the air and sign up for volunteer shifts at phone banks and neighborhood canvassing events.

Sanders then would deadpan. The future of the country and the world rests on the younger generation’s shoulders, he would say, but no big deal.

"It is absolutely imperative that the younger generation get involved in the political process in a way they have never done before,” Sanders said in an interview with the Register. “And given the fact that the younger generation is, by and large, a very progressive generation, if they get involved heavily in politics, and they vote in high numbers, we can transform this country."

Meanwhile, editorial pages and critics have accused Sanders and fellow presidential contender U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts of pandering to college students with their debt forgiveness proposals. Warren wants to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for former students, depending on their household incomes, while Sanders wants to wipe out the entire $1.6 trillion owed by those who pursued higher education.

It's not pandering, Sanders insists

In an interview, Sanders laughed off the accusation of pandering.

"Y’know it's funny, whenever you're speaking to the needs of working people, you are accused of pandering,” Sanders told the Register. “When you bail out the crooks on Wall Street, you're just doing the right thing. When you give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to top 1%, and the large profitable corporations, you're doing the right things. When you spend $750 billion a year on the military — which is more than the next 10 nations combined — you're just doing the right thing.”

Government exists “to protect working families and the most vulnerable people,” not the upper crusts, Sanders said, echoing points made at his rallies. And for the students listening, they didn’t feel pandered to.

"The people who say that it's pandering, I don't want to judge them, but I don't think they understand how large of a problem it is,” Beth Osia, a 28-year-old Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of Iowa said after the rally there. “… I mean this is trillions of dollars of debt on people who are just starting their careers, their livelihoods. Just based on economics in general, is it really a great idea to limit the spending of your next big consumer group to the point where they can't buy homes? Where they can't buy any kind of property, they can't start businesses?”

Osia hasn't picked the candidate she supports yet, though Sanders is in the mix, and health care topped student debt on her priority list. She graduated with about $28,000 in student loan debt from her undergraduate degree, she said. To pay it down, she took a “drudging tech job” and returned home to pay it down before pursuing her doctorate degree.

Sanders' plan to wipe out student debt and its sister proposal, making public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition free, would be paid for by “a Wall Street speculation tax” expected to raise $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

He would tax 0.5% of stock trades, a tenth of a percent on bond trades and .005% tax on derivatives. He hit on those proposals at his Sunday and Monday Iowa events, as well as his plans regarding climate change, protecting abortion rights, banning assault weapons and raising the minimum wage.

Would states welcome the free college plan?

Sanders' plan for free college is modeled after the College for All Act he has introduced in the Senate. That plan puts up $48 billion in federal money to offer states a 2-to-1 funding match to eliminate tuition at public schools.

The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, included a 9-to-1 match for states expanding their Medicaid program to a wider pool of residents. More than a dozen states have declined to expand their programs. Iowa initially declined to expand Medicaid coverage, and only did so with a federal waiver.

Sanders said too many states would fear a “brain drain” of the best and brightest heading to other states’ schools to fail to sign up for the free-tuition plan.

"Smart state governments will say you know what, we can't afford that brain drain,” Sanders said in an interview. “Our kids want and deserve the right to have a higher education without going deeply into debt. I think this will, in fact, become a 50-state program. Maybe not initially, but they will respond because they don't want to see young people fleeing their own states."

He argued the proposals further benefit the states by freeing students to make decisions not based on debt. A doctor with $400,000 in student loan debt won't consider setting up a general practice in rural Iowa, for example, if the debt means they can't afford it, Sanders said.

Jackie Falconer, a 21-year-old graphics and business major at the private Wartburg College in Waverly, watched Sanders' speech at the University of Northern Iowa Monday. She said after that a tuition-free public university would have changed her considerations for college.

While she didn’t consider student debt relief or tuition-free public schools her top issue — it’s not in her top three, even — she supports it for the help it could offer others. She pointed toward Sanders’ stances on fighting climate change, legalizing marijuana and protecting women’s rights as her top issues.

Sanders speaking to those issues motivated her, and, she thinks, will motivate others in her generation to engage because it doesn’t sound like politics as usual.

“I don’t feel pandered to,” Falconer said. “I feel understood.”

Nick Coltrain is a politics and data reporter for the Register. Reach him at ncoltrain@registermedia.com or at 515-284-8361. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Subscribe today at DesMoinesRegister.com/Deal.