Explore How Presidential Candidates Stand on Student Loan Debt

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While the race for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations remains an early and crowded one, the Student Loan Ranger thought it might be a good time to start getting an idea of where some of the candidates stand on student debt.

We're glad to see that so many candidates are making student debt a priority this early in the race, because it is usually an issue that candidates don't take a public position on until the general election. Since there are almost too many hopefuls to count right now, we'll just focus on the current top two from each party.

Hillary Clinton

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton rolled out her higher education plan, called The New College Compact, this past August. The plan can be summed up by a quote from a speech she gave in New Hampshire the day it was officially released: "No family and no student should have to borrow to pay tuition at a public college or university," Clinton said. "And everyone who has student debt should be able to finance it at lower rates."

The plan isn't so much about new ideas, but about picking and choosing from policy proposals currently being batted around by both sides of the aisle. Therefore, it seems to hit some liberal as well as conservative notes.

To reduce future student debt, Clinton proposes offering grants to states that reinvest in and work with their public colleges to allow students to attend with a minimal, wage-based contribution and no debt. Community colleges would be completely tuition free.

Existing student loans would see a significant decrease in interest rates and simplification of the current myriad of income-driven repayment options. The plan would also encourage higher college completion rates, require college accreditors to require more flexible and robust education methods and require colleges whose students are unable to reasonably repay their loans to contribute to a program that supports schools that serve low-income students.

The $350 billion price tag may prove to be one of the most controversial parts of the plan. Clinton proposes this be paid for with tax adjustments for the wealthy.

Ben Carson

While Clinton's proposals focus on increasing funds for higher education assistance, Republican candidate Dr. Ben Carson has somewhat of an opposite view. His solution for paying for college comes in the form of existing Pell Grant funding and, as he noted during a 2014 interview, "there is a four letter word that works extremely well, it's called w-o-r-k, work."

In a more recent interview, he expands his position to say that while student loans are OK, their interest rates are not. He says that schools should carry part of the responsibility of student loan debt by paying for the interest on the loans for the students they enroll.

In a more official statement on education, Carson criticizes the federal Department of Education, but unlike other Republican candidates who have called for it to be eliminated, Carson would like to use the department to "monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny federal funding if it exists."

Bernie Sanders

Also currently at the top of the Democratic hopeful list, Bernie Sanders's position on higher education debt mirrors some of the issues that Clinton is pushing for, but goes a step further. He too calls for free higher eduation by requiring public colleges and universities to meet the financial need of the "lowest-income students."

Under this plan, low-income students would use state, federal and institutional aid to cover tuition, living and other expenses. He would also like to see an increase in federal aid programs, on his campaign website specifically calling to "more than triple the federal work-study program to build valuable career experience that will help them after they graduate."

Sanders's website doesn't expand on this statement, but this could be interpreted to mean that more students would have the ability to work for their aid money, rather than receive it in the form of loans or straight grants. Sanders' position on these other programs remains unclear, but he's also a proponent of lowering interest rates on both future and existing student loans. He suggests paying for all of this with a new tax on people he calls Wall Street speculators.

Donald Trump

While Republican hopeful Donald Trump hasn't issued an official plan regarding student loans, he has made one of his views pretty clear. In a July interview with The Hill, Trump said, "That's probably one of the only things the government shouldn't make money off – I think it's terrible that one of the only profit centers we have is student loans."

While Trump has never outlined his plans to change that, what's most surprising about this statement, one he repeated in a Twitter chat last month, is that it's one espoused by arguably one of the most liberal politicians out there – Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

TAGS: education student loans students paying for college debt financial aid colleges Carson, Benjamin Clinton, Hillary Sanders, Bernie Trump, Donald

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Betsy Mayotte, director of regulatory compliance for American Student Assistance, regularly advises consumers on planning and paying for college. Mayotte, who received a B.S. in business communications from Bentley College, is a frequent contributor to ASA's SALT Blog; responds to public inquiries via the advice resource "Just Ask;" and is frequently quoted in traditional and social media on the topics of Educational loan and financial aid.

Source: (https://educationloansinindia.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/explore-how-presidential-candidates-stand-on-student-loan-debt-2/)