Presidential candidates from both parties are tapping into Americans’ growing angst over paying for college, placing an unprecedented bright glare on higher education this election.

For Democrats, the solution is making college cheaper, or free. Republicans want more innovation and efficiency.


The surge in candidates’ collective interest in the issue isn’t a coincidence: Nearly half the students who answered a recent UCLA survey on the importance of financial aid in their college decision making said it was “very important” — the highest percentage ever in the 42 years the question was asked. A Gallup poll earlier this year found more parents fret about having enough money to pay for their kids’ college than other Americans worry about any other common financial concern.

Tuition sticker prices, adjusted for inflation, have tripled for public four-year colleges and more than doubled for private ones in the last three decades — helping push higher education issues into the forefront. And the nation faces a collective $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. There’s a fear among many voters that they or their children will be shut out of higher education altogether.

But the Democrats will have to come up with big bucks to pay for their proposals. And the GOP will have to go beyond criticizing the higher ed establishment to come up with solutions at scale.

For a higher education community used to autonomy and valuing the intellectual pursuit of a degree — not just the salary it leads to — the focus from across the political spectrum is in many ways terrifying, said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal policy analysis at American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

“My worry is that we’ll end up with a series of politically appealing messages that represent really lousy policy,” Nassirian said.

The spotlight comes at a difficult economic time for the nation’s colleges and universities. College enrollments are down and even as most states have been restoring recession cuts, higher education funding remains well below pre-recession levels, with the average state spending 23 percent less per student than before the recession, the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said last year.

Beyond debt-free college proposals, Hillary Clinton, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders frequently attack for-profit schools. Clinton has also embraced refinancing student loan debt, calling it “one of my biggest economic and educational priorities.”

Republican candidates, in turn, take swipes at the higher education system, with GOP Florida Sen. Marco Rubio going so far as to call the college accrediting system a “cartel.” It’s a message that could endear the GOP candidates to conservatives long skeptical of what they perceive as the liberal culture of academia.

As they make their case, candidates including Clinton, O’Malley and Rubio tell personal stories of struggling to repay student loans — and sometimes they go deep into the policy weeds.

At a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Reno, Nevada, in June, Clinton called for an end to what’s known by critics as the “90/10 loophole.” Clinton said it had led to “false promises and deceptive marketing” directed at Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for their Post-9/11 GI Bill money. The so-called 90/10 rule bars for-profit colleges and universities from getting more than 90 percent of their revenue from federal student aid programs. But GI Bill benefits and Defense Department tuition assistance funds don’t count toward the 90 percent, so Clinton and others say it gives for-profit colleges an incentive to recruit veterans.

And then there’s Rubio. He has encouraged the expansion of “income share agreements,” a form of student aid that allows private investors to pay students’ college costs in exchange for a percentage of students’ future earnings. And he co-sponsored “right to know before you go” legislation that would make key facts available about each college. He has plans to reform the college accreditation system, too.

“Within my first 100 days, I will bust this cartel by establishing a new accreditation process that welcomes low-cost, innovative providers,” Rubio said this month. “This would expose higher education to the market forces of choice and competition, which would prompt a revolution driven by the needs of students — just as the needs of consumers drive the progress of every other industry in our economy.”

Rubio’s comment on breaking up cartels in many ways foretells the future of what candidates will say on the higher education front, said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Budgets are strapped and there’s growing support at the state level and on Capitol Hill to drive down college costs, boost graduation rates, cut the amount of time it takes to earn degrees and get people employed.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — who didn’t graduate from college — has taken a different tack. He’s also embraced “risk sharing” in which colleges have a small stake in whether graduates pay back their loans — an idea gaining traction on Capitol Hill. And he attempted to shut down a small state agency that oversaw for-profit programs.

He’s also taken on the sacred ground of tenure in the name of more flexibility and financial leverage for the state university system. He signed a $76 billion state budget that weakened tenure protections for university professors — a move that triggered an uproar from higher education groups. The budget included $250 million in cuts to the state’s public higher education system over two years as part of an effort to help keep tuition prices levels for four years.

Walker told a radio station earlier this year that “maybe it’s time for faculty and staff to start thinking about teaching more classes and doing more work.”

Similarly, Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed an executive order forming a state task force on affordability and efficiency and threatened to “take an ax” to state funding of Ohio’s public universities and colleges if they fail to cut costs and make tuition more affordable, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was among the hosts of a conference last year focused on global higher education that emphasized innovation and online learning. He’s challenged an Obama administration regulation that for-profit schools show graduates are “gainfully employed.” At a Greenville, S.C., event this spring, the Greenville News reported that he said federal loan programs finance a “dramatic expansion” of buildings and “prestigious programs for universities for them to feel good about what they’re doing.”

Donald Trump has criticized the federal government for earning a profit from federal student loans, the Hill wrote. He’s also facing legal action connected to his for-profit investment school Trump University.

Some, like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, are also attacking the Democrats’ focus on debt-free college.

“That is a typical liberal approach. It is wrong,” Christie said recently. “If college graduates are going to reap the greater economic rewards and opportunities of earning a degree, then it seems fair for them to support the cost of the education they’re receiving.”

John Cheslock, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Penn State University, said that for Republicans, “it appears that they are best served during the primaries by aggressively criticizing or reforming higher education.”

As Clinton ramped up her campaign this spring, former President Bill Clinton ended his work as honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities, a for-profit network of online and campus-based schools. Critics viewed the move as a way to shield his wife from connections to the industry since Democrats have made it a punching bag. She also earned the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers union, which has advocated for debt-free college plans.

One big hurdle for Democrats is paying for their proposals. The plans to refinance student loan debt and provide debt-free college have projected price tags that stretch well into the tens of billions of dollars. Sanders, for example, has said his plan to make four-year public colleges and universities free would provide $70 billion a year in assistance to replace what public colleges and universities now charge in tuition and fees. A federal-state partnership, with the federal dollars coming from imposing a tax on Wall Street transactions by investment houses, hedge funds and other speculators, would underwrite the proposal.

Clinton is expected to roll out a higher education plan focused on repaying student loan debt, one that will likely be influenced by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

“My question is how is she going to pay for it? And, where is she going to get the money from?” Carnevale said.

President Barack Obama’s $60 billion plan announced earlier this year to provide free community college shows the political complexities of such plans. It was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats with complaints such as that it was too expensive, chose one higher education sector over the other and would provide free college to students who might be able to afford it over providing deeper need to poor students. It gained little traction on Capitol Hill, although House Democrats filed a bill that extended the price tag to $90 billion over a decade.