The 2020 Presidential Candidates on Education
The 2020 Presidential election will (hopefully) be held this year in November, and we need to start seriously thinking about who we want to vote for. As a fashion student, when I watch TV like The Bachelor or The Voice, I often select my favorite contestant based on their outfit. Unfortunately, that method will not fly when selecting which presidential candidate to vote for.
There are two candidates competing to get the Democratic nomination, in order to square off against the one Republican incumbent for the 2020 election. In the election debates, there are so many policies, legislation, and other topics that presidential candidates explain their stances on. Sometimes, it is hard to sift through everything that they discuss in order to know where you stand and what you agree with. As students, one of the most relevant topics to us would be education. Let’s take a look at each of the candidates views on education and see where we stand.
Joe Biden (D)
Joe Biden is a long-term Senator for Delaware and served as Vice President for former president Barack Obama. Biden has a better understanding about the importance of education, as his wife is a community college professor. Biden proposed Education Next, which will allow students to attend community college for free. NASFAA records that during one debate, Biden discussed student loans with a current college student. Biden explains, “borrowers should not have to make payments toward their loans until they are earning at least $30,000 a year, and loans should not accumulate interest before borrowers begin earning that amount.” He also claims that he would reduce the percentage of income that borrowers repay in income-driven repayment plans from 10% to 5%.
This policy would allow students more time to create stability instead of handing them bills as soon as they graduate. You can read more about Biden's proposal for higher education here.
Bernie Sanders (D)
Bernie Sanders is a long-term standing Senator for Vermont, and is known as the only “socialist” in Congress. Bernie created his “College For All Act” which would allow $47 billion to be put aside each year to remove undergraduate tuition and fees at public universities. As well as expanding on the Federal Work-Study program, Bernie wants to eliminate student debt entirely. By using a tax on Wall Street, he hopes to cancel the $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt.
Bernie's plan is very attractive because it would eliminate student debt and allow all colleges to be free. You can read more about Bernies higher education proposals here.
Donald Trump (R)
In Trump’s 2018 budget proposal, he lays out his goal of cutting $150 billion from federal student aid programs over the span of 10 years. His newest proposal also includes retracting $2 billion from the Pell Grant Reserve. What this could mean for students is that loans will be of lesser value, or that it will be more difficult to qualify for a loan. Trump supports the The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is a more clear-cut process for paying off loans, based off of the number of work-study and Pell Grant students at a university.
He has also proposed new student loan forgiveness for graduates that belong to a single-income driven repayment plan. You can read more about Trump’s higher education proposals here.
And finally, Donald Trump on education:
