Elizabeth Warren announces a plan to end student debt and make higher education affordable for all. Now, I was a big fan of Bernie Sanders’ tuition free public college plan and still am. It’s a very progressive policy proposal and, while I have chided Bernie and his friends for claiming falsely that all advanced industrial nations except the U. S. have such a plan, I was and remain enthusiastic about it. (Many nations do have tuition-free higher education and most make higher education far more affordable than the U.S. does, but it’s not as sweeping as Bernie alleges.) But even then I said that this policy only helped future students and their families and didn’t help at all with current student debt. In 2016, Warren was already pushing for all student debts to be re-financed at 0% interest, which would save tons and relieve millions of people.
This plan goes further than either Bernie’s tuition-free college or Warren’s own previous debt-relief plan, while incorporating the best of both previous policies. The new Warren Plan includes:
- Cancels most existing student debt:
All students and families making $100 thousand or less per year would be eligible to cancel up to $50,000.
Students and families making between $100 thousand and $250 thousand per year would be able to cancel $1 for every $3 spent on a sliding scale of income, e.g., those making $130 thousnd could cancel $40,000 in student debt.
All told this would cancel up to 95% of all student loan debt and would cost the federal government about $640 billion, but would help up to 45 million people currently burdened by student debt.
- As with Bernie Sanders’ plan, all public 2 year and 4 year colleges/universities would be tuition free in a federal/state partnership.
- For-Profit colleges would no longer be eligible for any form of federal aid, including military aid. That’s huge since these for-profit schools prey on the poor and on military veterans and give them huge debts for often-worthless degrees—when their students even graduate.
- Pell Grants would be expanded in terms of both eligibility and funding to cover non-tuition costs and to help students who attend private colleges and universities.
- Future federal student loans would be at 0% interest so that the federal government does not profit off of students and their families.
- Warren’s plan creates a $50 billion fund for Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs) and minority-serving institutions to ensure that per-student spending at these institutions is comparable to other institutions of higher education in their areas. This is specifically aimed at making sure our higher education system better addresses the needs of communities of color.
- Additional federal funds would be available to states whose public colleges and universities show “substantial improvement in enrollment and graduation rates for lower-income students and students of color.”
- Public colleges and universities would be forbidden from considering citizenship status or criminal history in admissions decisions.
- Public colleges and universities would be required to have annual audits to check enrollment and graduation rates for lower income students and students of color.
- The entire plan costs the federal government approx. $1.25 trillion over 10 years, to be paid for by Warren’s proposed wealth tax.
This is a game changer, if adopted. That’s the clincher. For this to become reality, either Warren must win or another Democrat must win and adopt her plan—AND Democrats must keep the House and take back the Senate. Mitch “Call-Me-the-Grim-Reaper” McConnell (R-Douchebag) has already promised that if Dems take the WH, but he remains Majority Leader in the Senate that he will not allow a vote on even ONE of the progressive policies that Democrats have been proposing. So, we know what’s at stake folks.
Economists estimate that this plan would generate tons of economic activity as those now burdened by student debt can purchase cars and homes, start businesses, take jobs that pay lower, but serve communities more (e.g., most service jobs). This plan levels playing fields and unleashes the energies of the young. Investing in education pays off—especially for the poor. (The cure for cancer could well be in the head of a poor kid who is from a community of color or is un-documented, etc.) We ALL benefit from policies like these.
This is why I am contributing to Warren’s campaign and why she remains my first choice to win our party’s nomination.
Full disclosure: Our family would get to wipe out $50K in debt for our daughters’ education, so I am not disinterested or neutral.