Hillary Clinton on Monday rolled out a sweeping higher education plan — a $350 billion proposal that would help millions pay for college and reduce interest rates for people with student loans.

The plan, which would change the way a large swath of Americans pay for college, borrows ideas from the left and the right and even expands a program enacted by her husband. It includes ideas already being discussed in Congress and for which groundwork has been laid by the Obama administration. The proposal, dubbed the New College Compact, is unlikely to win over many in the GOP because the $350 billion over 10 years would come from cutting tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans.


Clinton discussed the plan, a litmus test of sorts for progressives, at a campaign stop Monday in New Hampshire.

“No family and no student should have to borrow to pay tuition at a public college or university,” Clinton said at Exeter High School. “And everyone who has student debt should be able to finance it at lower rates.”

And at a stop in Iowa later in the week, Clinton will offer additional proposals intended to help nontraditional students — such as those who are already parents — complete their degrees, the campaign said. And the plan’s rollout is timed to coincide with college students heading back to school, potentially luring a voting bloc critical for President Barack Obama that Clinton needs to court as well.

A senior campaign official called the combination of ideas and the intense emphasis on the issue of paying for college a “bold transformation of how we would do higher education financing in our country.”

The compact’s base-line goals are to allow students to attend a four-year public college without taking out loans for tuitionor attend a community college tuition-free, push states to spend more on higher education, encourage institutions to cut costs while boosting graduation rates, and reward innovation.

“This is a real political organizing opportunity,” the official said. “We have heard everywhere Hillary Clinton goes, literally everywhere she goes … from young people who are being held back or families who have no idea how they’re going to pay for” college.

Republicans, including Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, have argued that public college tuition is largely affordable now and that stories of students who have racked up more than $100,000 of debt are outliers.

“Members of the Senate education committee are working on a plan to help students graduate more quickly with less debt,” a Republican aide said. “Students, taxpayers and voters should react with great skepticism to any proposals that would amount to a Washington takeover of higher education and jeopardize the autonomy and independence that has made our higher education system the best in the world. These kinds of ideas usually go hand in hand with higher state taxes, increased costs and fewer choices.”

Clinton’s plan places the blame on states for cutting back on their investment in higher education, hiking tuition even as federal scholarships for low-income students — Pell Grants — were being increased and awarded to more students to keep up.

Clinton noted that New Hampshire community college students pay nearly twice what they would in neighboring Maine and that Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan is working to reverse her state’s disinvestment in higher education.

Her compact calls for more federal investment in colleges but only in exchange for pledges that colleges will invest more, too.

The campaign praised some Obama administration initiatives, including the boosts in Pell Grant spending and the expansion of programs that allow graduates to repay loans based on the size of their paycheck. But Clinton wants to address the underlying issue that led to the need for those changes and the nation’s collective $1.2 trillion in student loan debt.

“We haven’t dealt with the crux of the problem: How do we actually stem the cost curve?” the campaign official said.

Barmak Nassirian, director of federal policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said overall he thinks it’s a “very positive plan” touching on many pieces of the puzzle. He said it’s good that it encourages state investment in colleges and universities. “It’s a pretty solid approach.”

According to the College Board’s 2014 pricing guide, published in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions ranged from a low of $4,646 in Wyoming and $6,138 in Alaska to highs of $14,419 in Vermont and $14,712 in New Hampshire.

Clinton’s plan walks the line between the “debt-free” college and free tuition proposals offered by fellow Democratic contenders Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, respectively. States that keep students from going into debt to pay for their living expenses would get additional federal cash in Clinton’s plan. And low-income students who qualify for Pell Grants would be able to use those for living expenses.

And taking a cue from many GOP presidential candidates focused on higher education, the plan emphasizes accountability and innovation. It pushes colleges to make sure students complete their degrees and suggests financial aid for students earning so-called digital badges and other credentials from online courses.

The plan also draws from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has condemned the federal government for supposedly profiting on student loans. (The administration has said the interest on student loans is spent on things like Pell Grants and the loan-repayment programs that make repayment proportionate to a borrower’s income.)

Clinton’s compact also would allow refinancing so existing borrowers could sharply cut their interest rates, another Warren idea congressional lawmakers rejected last year. It would have been paid for by taxing the wealthy.

“If you want to fix the student debt problem in America, you can’t just focus only on the future generation of borrowers,” said Rohit Chopra, the former student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He noted that there are about 8 million student loan borrowers in default owing approximately $115 billion.

Chopra, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who provided advice to the campaign on some aspects of the plan, said any such plan must address both the symptoms and the disease and include components such as ensuring that student loan servicing companies are giving good advice to borrowers about available plans to help them repay their loans before going into default.

Clinton’s overall $350 billion budget for the proposal breaks down like this: More than half of the total would be spent on the grants for state and colleges. Another third would be the expense of cutting interest rates for students who have outstanding student loan debt. And the rest would be spent on innovations, rewarding college completion and boosting support for parents.

But when it comes to refinancing existing debt and lower current interest rates, the reality could be more costly than Clinton’s campaign estimates because of the size of these programs, said Mark Schneider, a vice president and institution fellow at the American Institutes for Research and president of College Measures.

“When we talk about changing student debt, I get nervous about how much many of these changes will cost,” Schneider said.

He also questioned why if Clinton is interested in getting all schools to provide a quality education she doesn’t endorse gainful employment standards for all sectors of education. The regulation requires career training programs to track their graduates’ performance in the workforce and eventually will cut off funding for those that fall short.

“If gainful employment is good for proprietary schools, why isn’t it good for everybody?” Schneider said.

Clinton’s plan does incorporate a recent proposal from Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire that would have colleges with low student loan repayment rates send money to a fund supporting colleges serving high percentages of low- and moderate-income students.

And it draws from another bipartisan proposal, from Sens. Alexander of Tennessee and Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado: simplifying the federal student aid application.

Though much of the plan builds on ideas already proposed or enacted by others, some aspects carry a distinct Clinton stamp. The plan would expand the volunteer program AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 members and expand the college cost benefits extended to these volunteers. (Former President Bill Clinton created the volunteer program in his first term.)

Another Hillary Clinton trademark is a focus on veterans. Her plan would expand a program that supports vets who pursue their degree. And it would change the way for-profit colleges calculate how much revenue they draw from federal student aid programs by including GI Bill benefits and Defense Department tuition assistance money, which aren’t part of the calculation now.

Also on for-profits, the plan would expand regulators’ power to crack down on for-profit colleges that engage in deceptive marketing or fraud. Taking a cue from the closure of for-profit giant Corinthian, Clinton would streamline the process for students to cancel their student loan debt and reset benefits for defrauded GI Bill students, a nod to a proposal by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

The plan would make permanent the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which can help students pay for tuition, fees and materials. Colleges and universities would have to become more upfront about graduation rates, likely earnings and debt and how those compare with other schools.

Clinton’s plan targets nontraditional college students, too, her campaign said, in part to cater to the modern worker, who may need additional skills to advance or change careers even if they already have a degree. Clinton’s plan would allow the Education Department to pursue more experiments that allow students taking some types of online courses to draw federal financial aid.

Her campaign said she’s intrigued by the partnership forged by Arizona State University and Starbucks last year in which employees can work on completing their degrees online with Starbucks picking up some of the tab in the long run. Another new ASU offering allows students to earn credits very inexpensively toward their freshman year of college via a partnership with the online nonprofit edX.

“A presidential election is the time to consider broad changes to public policy, and this is a big, bold and complex proposal,” American Council on Education President Molly Corbett Broad said.

“With the widespread public interest in helping students and their families finance a college education,” she said, “it is not surprising to see this and other proposals put forward as part of the conversation around how to make college more affordable and encourage states to invest appropriately in higher education.”

Allie Grasgreen contributed to this report.