Herman Cain (Steve Marcus/Reuters)
Paul Ryan may want to
eliminate Pell Grants and force college students to rely even more heavily on loans, but Herman Cain is doing him one
better more extreme.
Cain is opposed to federal student aid of
any kind:
“I believe that if a state wants to help with college education, that they should do that,” Cain said. “Secondly, you have people living within communities within states that are willing to help fund those kinds of programs. So I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to help fund a college education because herein, our resources are limited and I believe that the best solution is the one closest to the problem. The people within the state, the people within the communities, ultimately, I believe, are the ones who have that responsibility.”
Cain starts that quote with something foolish, and then reaches for something even worse. First, the states should pay. Think Progress points to a couple problems with that notion:
Would students receive grants from their home state or from the state in which they attend school? What if a student’s parents want or need to move midway through a student’s college years? Would she lose her aid and have to get it from either her or her parents’ new state?
Then, Cain moves straight from saying states should fund student aid to saying that "people living within communities" should do it. That's kind of like the theory that cancer treatment for uninsured people should be funded through church bake sales. It provides heartwarming tales of generosity and community fellowship, but in the end, there's someone whose life has been opened up to judgment (are they a worthy recipient of community aid?) yet still can't afford their cancer treatment or college tuition.
College tuitions are soaring, student loan debt is enormous, Pell Grants cover a fraction of what they did in the 1970s, the percentage of qualified students from low-income families who go to four-year colleges is dropping, and a college degree is increasingly necessary (but not sufficient) to guarantee entry into the middle class. Yet Herman Cain's answer is to eliminate federal student aid and tell kids whose families can't afford to pay their tuition to find people in their communities to pay their way.
