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Monday, March 14, 2016

Hillary's New College Compact Plan

Ok. so now that I'm done with Bernie's Town Hall, we're on to Hillary's. The beauty of digital video recording!

In the old days I would have had a hard time watching both these debates so seamlessly. But here you can watch it all at your leisure.

The first questioner of the night for Hil, was a young woman named Summer. Her question was basic and to the point: Most of her friends she knows supports Bernie Sanders. What can Hillary herself do for college students?

It's a great question and segues well with a previous piece I did on Bernie's Free College for All plan.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/03/bernies-free-college-plan-doesnt-lead.html

The beauty of it: it's not college for all. Not even close.

It's kind of a carrot for states that might want to do their own free tuition plans. It's sort of like the ACA but far less generous.

"One is that the 2-1 match for eliminating tuition is much less generous than the 9-1 match offered by the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, yet many states have chosen not to expand Medicaid."

"The other is that because the College for All Act requires qualifying universities to reduce reliance on low-paid adjunct faculty in addition to eliminating tuition, in practice the federal match is worth even less than 2 to 1."

Matt Yglesias though is very impressed by the fact that Bernie calls it 'Free college for all' even though it: isn't free college for all.

Hillary's plan isn't free college for all either with the added bonus that she doesn't call it free college for all. Of course, no one would every let her get away with doing that.

Hillary calls her plan the New College Compact. Two very good things it does:

1. Debt free college

2. Refinances debt students already have. This is something that can even help me, as I've got lots of student debt. Lots and lots. It is a real problem.

How much you pay is also contingent on how much your income is. This holds colleges accountable. They promise you a great job and don't deliver. They don't collect all their tuition. Someone working at Dunkin Donuts isn't going to pay it all back.

Finally there is a statue of limitation on how long the the debt can be outstanding.

As she says it's more comprehensive than Bernie's. And it doesn't pretend to be what it isn't. Yet they say Hillary is the one with the truth problem.

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