“This is a major initiative that will revolutionise higher education in this country and improve the lives of so many of our people.” So said Bernie Sanders of Hillary Clinton’s plan for “debt-free” public higher education, in the July speech in which he endorsed his former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.
One of Mr Sanders' attention-grabbing pledges, highly popular with his supporters, had been to abolish tuition fees in public higher education and make it free for all. Ms Clinton’s on college stated that students should not have to borrow to pay for tuition, books or fees, but would have required families to make “an affordable and realistic family contribution”.
However, in July she went further and committed to a plan that would mean by 2021 students from families with income up to $125,000 (?95,000) will at in-state four-year public colleges and universities, a pledge covering 80 per cent of US families, according to her campaign.
Supporters of the plan will say that in the world’s most important, and most marketised, higher education system, it could mark an important shift towards seeing higher education as a public good accessible to all.
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Ms Clinton’s revamping of her policy was seen as an attempt to win backing from Mr Sanders and his supporters. But the political move brings important policy questions: whether this is the right remedy on college affordability and whether it has any chance of being implemented by a Clinton White House.
“During the primaries and in the debates, the main distinction that Clinton drew between her [original] plan and the Sanders plan was that the Sanders plan would pay for higher education for a lot of people who didn’t need help,” said William Doyle, associate professor of public policy and higher education at Vanderbilt University, a lead author on the 2016 ,?which found that affordability had declined in all 50 states since 2008.