The Democratic presidential candidate wrote that student debt crisis is ‘absurd’ and income should not prevent anyone from getting higher education

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders promised on Thursday to “revolutionize” higher education with universal free public college tuition, because it is the “right thing to do”.



Funding access to higher education degrees regardless of family income will make America richer and more competitive in the global economy, he pledged, and is also a way of reviving the American dream for all young people.



Sanders called the nation’s $1.3tn student debt crisis and high interest rates on student loans “absurd”, in an opinion piece for Thursday’s Washington Post.

Sanders solemnly lamented the hundreds of thousands of bright, qualified Americans who cannot get a degree “for one reason alone, their families cannot afford it”, in an accompanying video.

The senator from Vermont fired up the conversation on college affordability in the spring, at the earliest stage of the race for the Democratic nomination, when he positioned himself firmly on a platform of progressive populism.

He has passionately pushed the theme ever since, promising to extract federal tax dollars from Wall Street speculators and the richest elites and corporations to fund one of the main pillars of his policy platform.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton waited until August to unveil her plans for making college more affordable and, unlike Sanders, believes that families who are able should have to pay towards their children’s tuition fees.

Clinton takes debt-free higher education from progressive dream to mainstream Read more

Sanders argued on Thursday that “an education should be available to all regardless of anyone’s station” both as the best chance for people’s personal fulfillment and also to give the US “the best educated workforce in the world”.

“We won’t achieve that if, every year, hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college while millions more leave school deeply in debt,” he wrote.

He pointed out that in the 1950s and 1960s, graduating from high school guaranteed the chance to get a job or an apprenticeship that allowed a sole breadwinner to house and raise a family and “send their kids to college”.

“That was the American dream. Unfortunately, today, for too many Americans, it’s not a possibility,” he wrote.

And young Americans now need a higher education degree, not just graduation from high school, as the equivalent key to prosperity, he said.

Sanders opened his remarks with a reminder that it was a Republican president, Rutherford Hayes, who made the argument in the 19th century for universally available public education in the form of free schooling.

That meant not excluding the children of wealthy elites from free tuition, he said, a clear reference to Clinton’s pledge of debt-free college, not free college outright, in her attempt to steer a progressive policy into the mainstream.

Sanders sought to remind voters on Thursday who occupies the progressive higher ground. He called it “absurd” that people often pay 8% or 10% interest rates on student loans, while refinancing a home loan for 2% or 3%.

Sanders also took a side-swipe at Republican contender Jeb Bush, saying that when Hayes promulgated universal public education he “didn’t worry that some poor kid might benefit from access to ‘free stuff’”, , in reference to Jeb Bush’s response to a question last month about how the Republican party could attract more black votes.

Bush’s controversial response was: “Our message is one of hope and aspiration. It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff”.

In May, Sanders introduced a Senate bill that would eliminate tuition at four-year public colleges and universities, which is estimated to cost $70bn a year, with two thirds of the cost expected to be covered by the federal government and the remainder by the states.