Bernie Sanders Vs. Hillary Clinton: Higher Education

Hillary Clinton can’t find much to attack Bernie Sanders about, but if she can find something and make it stick, she will. In her most recent appearance, Clinton went after Bernie Sanders’s higher education plan, which she ridiculed. In a tweet to her followers recently, she noted that taxpayers should not be paying for Donald Trump’s children to go to college.

This, of course, is a sore spot for many. If tax payers must fund an education for everyone, it also includes the rich. However, this kind of logic doesn’t hold much water under scrutiny. After all, Donald Trump is a very wealthy man, and if he paid his fair share of taxes (as he would under Bernie Sanders) he would also contribute to the higher education tax plan.

As senator, Bernie Sanders has proposed taxes on Wall Street that would help cover a single payer health care system as well as to fund higher education for all.

This legislation is offset by imposing a Wall Street speculation fee on investment houses, hedge funds, and other speculators of 0.5 percent (50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1 percent fee on bonds, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivatives.

Bernie Sanders himself has added during the debates that higher education does include trade schools because not everyone wants a 2-or even a 4-year degree.

By taxing Wall Street speculators, we can save middle-class families sending kids to college an average of $9400 each year.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 26, 2015

So, what is Hillary’s plan vs. Bernie Sanders’ plan?

According to her campaign website, Clinton claims college costs won’t be a barrier, and her first bullet point claims community college students will receive free tuition. The next bullet point, however, directly contradicts this by pointing out the student will work 10 hours per week, the proceeds of which will go directly toward their tuition. The next bullet point advises that “families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.”

There is nothing about using taxpayer or corporate income taxes to fund tuition; instead, Hillary Clinton puts the burden squarely on the student and the student’s family. Adding further insult to injury, Clinton’s plan does not calculate the use of Pell Grants in tuition costs. Instead, these grants will be used for living expenses.

Under Hillary Clinton’s plan, she will allow students to refinance their loans and cut interest rates. Bernie Sanders’s plan will also allow for refinancing current loans to lower interest rates to make paying back current debt easier.

By contrast, Bernie Sanders offers a plan that would permit students to attend college without having to pay for tuition or apply for grants. According to his website, Sanders’s plan would be fully paid for by taxing Wall Street speculators. He notes this is a similar tax to those imposed in many European countries that offer a tuition-free college education. Such countries include Germany, France, Switzerland, and even China.

“If the taxpayers of this country could bailout Wall Street in 2008, we can make public colleges and universities tuition free and debt free throughout the country.”

Considering the source of many student loans, Bernie Sanders’s plan would keep the federal government from making a profit off of college students and their families. According to his campaign website, the federal government currently makes $110 billion in profits from its student loan programs.

Hillary Clinton’s plan is merely a continuation of a financial burden that many middle class and low-income families may not be able to afford. However, wealthy families will have no issue in paying for these expenses because they already have more money to spare. Likewise, wealthy families should have no issue with bearing a moderate increase in taxes in order to fund higher education for their children and for other people’s children, as well.

In the end, a slight tax increase is much cheaper than a student carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, which is still what Hillary Clinton’s plan would allow. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, is proposing a more sensible plan based on successful higher education programs already in place.

It is time to invest in the future, and the way to do that is to relieve the burden of crushing student debt and adopt a free college tuition plan, as Bernie Sanders has proposed.

[Photo: Darren McCollester/Getty]