UPDATE:
More presidential candidates have joined the push for (“free”) higher education.
Sen, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) just rolled out “a comprehensive higher education plan that includes a broad proposal to cancel student loan debt.”
Her plan includes cancelling $50,000 in student loan debt for persons with a household income under $100,000 – and others. She also proposes “universal free college.”
Bernie Sanders has traditionally been a “free college” supporter.
Others who have signed up for some form of “free college,” “free college for all,” “tuition-free college,” “metered free college,” “college affordability” plans and programs are – in addition to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (below), Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Amy Klobuchar.
Even Pete Buttigieg, “Mayor Pete,” who in the past has not viewed a debt-free college proposal as very progressive, has called for “expanding Pell grants, allowing borrowers to refinance their federal student loans, and making sure loan forgiveness is available to teachers and other public sector workers.”
Original Post:
Sometimes our political personalities have some very good ideas, sometimes some very bad ones — the “foot-in-mouth syndrome.”
I would place in the latter category the last three words in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal “summary” that would provide “economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.”
While those exact words appeared only briefly in a congressional web site and never appeared in the legislative text of the Green New Deal resolution itself, it provided enough fodder for Republicans to attempt to tear to pieces the entire Green New Deal.
On the other hand, on education and training, the Green New Deal House Resolution states that the Federal Government must provide “resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States.”
While many interpret such a proposal as one that would provide four years of “free college” (free tuition and coverage of other costs of attendance) for all at all colleges, state and public, others propose more moderate approaches ranging from “free” or tuition-free college at two-year community colleges or at any public college or university, to more limited approaches such as “debt free tuition” and other “college affordability” proposals.
Perhaps one the most expansive (with an “a”) and reasonable position papers I have read on the subject of “debt-free college” is one by former Maryland governor and 2016 presidential candidate, Martin O’Malley.
In it, O’Malley proposes that we “set, as a national goal, that all students have access to a high-quality, debt-free college education within 5 years, attainable at any in-state public college or university.”
In addition to providing relief to student borrowers from their and their families’ crushing debt of – at the time — $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loans, O’Malley emphasizes that states and the nation must:
• Reduce tuition costs, tie such costs to median incomes and help Low- and middle-income students cover non-tuition costs.
• Restore state higher education funding.
• Increase Pell grants and state grants.
• Expand and modernize work-study programs and support part-time and mid-career students, including making childcare affordable on campus.
All good ideas. Yet, the best educational program ever in this country (in my opinion) has been the “GI Bill”:
A sequence of programs that allowed O’Malley’s father, a WWII bombardier, “to go to law school debt-free and pursue his dreams” and that has provided this author (along with other military service-connected programs) an education he never dreamt of.
A set of educational programs that, starting with the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 and continuing today with the “Forever GI Bill,” has given more than 22 million veterans, active duty military and some dependents the educational and training opportunities many of whom could never have afforded otherwise.
The education these men and women received and continue to receive is not free. They have earned it through service to their country and oftentimes sacrifice, including for some through the ultimate sacrifice by their loved one.
The GI Bill programs fall, in my opinion, in the “very good idea” category.
And so does a recent proposal by presidential candidate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who has a good record on education and who proposes some “free college,” but with a twist: One has to earn it.
She believes that there should be “a service-minded incentive for students who are looking to lessen the financial burden of getting a postsecondary degree.”
As Gillibrand announced during an MSNBC interview,
Imagine telling every American kid, if you do public service for a year, you get two years free of community college or state school. Do two years of public service, you get four years free. That would create a pipeline of kids doing service for someone else.
The history of volunteerism in our country is rich and noble and goes all the way back to the time of the colonies, during peace and in war. It has become part of our American values system and it need not be rewarded. However, if some benefits are to be reaped off such selfless acts (some will question the “selflessness” of such acts when some benefit is in the offing), education is perhaps the most appropriate reward – in addition to the personal satisfaction and other personal benefits that volunteerism brings about.
That is why I believe Gillibrand’s idea is “a very good one,” and one that deserves closer attention.
What do you think?
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.