Hillary Clinton to reveal plans to help students repay loans
Hillary Clinton will unveil her plans to address college affordability and student debt in New Hampshire next week.
Clinton is expected to detail these proposals during a town hall Monday at Exeter High School, a public school in Exeter, N.H., her campaign said. She'll also take questions on the plan during a town hall discussion on Tuesday at River Valley Community College, in Claremont, N.H.
Clinton is expected to introduce a plan to incentivize states to invest in higher education through partnerships with the federal government, Politico reported, citing "several sources." The goal would be to decrease the share of tuition paid for by students and families. Research indicates that state disinvestment in higher education over the past several years has been a major cause of skyrocketing tuition fees.
Clinton's advisors also floated the idea of a student loan borrowers' bill of rights and a risk-sharing proposal that would discipline schools when their students struggle to pay off their loans, according to Politico. A bipar- tisan pair of Senators introduced a similar so-called "skin in the game" proposal earlier this week, which proposes tying the progress students make on repaying their loans to a school's ability to receive federal financial aid funding.
As 40 million Americans struggle with $1.2 trillion in student loan debt, the issue has come to the forefront of the presidential campaign. Two of Clinton's Democratic challengers, former Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders (DVt.), (I-Vt.) proposed plans earlier this year that would allow students to attend college debt- or tuition-free. A group of progressive organizers has pushed the idea of "debt-free college" into the Democratic mainstream in recent months.
While Republican presidential candidates have shied away from increasing federal investment in higher education, they've proposed plans to increase college affordability, including making college tuition tax-free and encouraging students to make agreements with private investors who would back their college tuition in exchange for a percentage of their earnings for a given period of time.