The Presidential Candidates and Their Potential Impact on Student Affairs

The Presidential Candidates and Their Potential Impact on Student Affairs

By, Steve Schuh, Winthrop University                                                                                                   

Introduction

As you most likely know, the election for President of the United States is right around the corner. Whether you feel the Bern or think Donald Trump will make America great again, chances are that you’re at least somewhat familiar with a few of the candidates. There have been a good number of debates, forums, rallies, speeches and the like over the past year that have touched on a wide array of topics. Some of the main issues being addressed are immigration, the war in the Middle East, marriage equality, the Affordable Care Act and many others. One topic that has been receiving a fair amount of attention is that of college tuition/debt. While most of the candidates want to take steps to help college students and graduates with this significant financial commitment, there are a number of ways that they have proposed doing so.

In years past I have been aware of the candidates, but was not as informed about their stances, policies and ideas as I have been this year.  The catalyst that truly drew my attention to the political arena was when I heard that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had declared his candidacy as a potential Republican candidate. Governor Walker contributed to drafting and implementing a plan that defunded the University of Wisconsin system approximately $250 million. Obviously $250 million is a large sum of money, and the Wisconsin universities felt the impact in the form of major budget cuts resulting in hundreds of jobs being eliminated, and also larger class sizes (Savige, 2015). Another thing that’s worth noting is that it seems this huge budget cut was not in fact to save tax payers money, as a couple of months later Governor Walker signed a bill allocating $250 million taxpayer dollars to build a new NBA arena (Salzberg, 2015). However, I am starting to get off topic, as this blog isn’t about candidates’ priorities in general, but instead how their stances on higher education and higher education funding might impact the field of student affairs.

Before I actually get into the bulk of this post, let me start with a few disclaimers. Obviously, each institution would handle a major budget cut like the one I mentioned above differently. As such, I am going to explore the general implications for the field as a whole, as opposed to trying to dissect how individual departments or offices might be impacted. Also, how I interpret the implications of a policy may be different from the way you see things. Please feel free to engage in a polite and informed discussion in the comments. Along those lines, I am going to work to keep any bias out of this post, however it may still show up in some form. Regardless of what our differing opinions or interpretations may be, the important thing is that we are educating ourselves on what the policies are! The last thing that I want to mention before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post is that I am not going to go over ALL of the candidates because there are simply too many of them. I am going to include info on the candidates that I think stand the best chance of being elected, or at least making it through the primaries. If you feel that I left one off that we should talk about, please post their stance in the comments! The candidates that I will discuss are Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Maro Rubio, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Please keep in mind that politicians occasionally change their mind, opinion, stance etc., so depending on when you’re reading this there is a chance that some things are different now!

Candidates

Donald Trump (R)

Ideally, most of the data included in this post is straight from the candidates’ campaign websites, however Trump’s currently doesn’t have anything on higher education or student loans. There are only five pages listed under “positions” and they are as follows: U.S. – China trade reform, Veterans Administration reform, tax reform, second amendment rights and immigration reform (www.donaldjtrump.com, 2015). That being said, there is a little information out there. Mr. Trump has stated that he does not think the government should be profiting off of student loans, though I can’t find any specifics on how he would adjust the current student loan structure. The main point that I see is that he wants to create jobs to employ college graduates (Cirilli, 2015). Another thing is that Trump has stated he wants to cut down the department of education, but again there were no specifics (Quinlan, 2015). One more point that is worth noting is that Trump University, an online for-profit “college” opened in 2005, however it did not seek accreditation or grant degrees. In 2010 the name was changed to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative at the request of the New York State Department of Education, and there are legal battles that continue to plague the company to this day (Quinlan, 2015). Considering how little time Trump is spending speaking about higher education, maybe he wouldn’t have a major impact on our field as his attention would be focused elsewhere. However, this is purely speculation on my part, and likely would be too good to be true.

Ted Cruz (R)

Www.tedcruz.org (2015) outlines several of Cruz’s stances. Arguably the item most significant to us on the website is that Cruz wants to abolish the Department of Education. The Dept. of Education handles a variety of tasks that directly relate to higher education such as student loans, grants, a variety of laws/legal initiatives and also recognizes accrediting agencies. He wants to move these responsibilities to the states instead of the federal government. There are definitely pros and cons to this, as each state’s needs are different, and state governments are likely more in tune with the specific needs of their populations, however it takes away a certain amount of continuity and accountability that comes with having these roles with the federal government. On top of abolishing the Department of Education, Cruz wants to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, both of which provide a healthy amount of funding to colleges and universities.

Overall, it seems to me that Ted Cruz doesn’t want to have much to do with higher education, and instead thinks state governments should oversee academia. That being said, Cruz is very conservative and is against both affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights which would definitely have ripple effects throughout our profession, but that opens up a whole other can of worms that I’m not going to get into here. In closing, if Ted Cruz were elected President, we may see a lot of the oversight of higher education move to state governments, and there could potentially be a decrease in funding for some grants. Though, these are some pretty significant changes, and the transition towards them would definitely take a good amount of time.

Marco Rubio (R)

If you look at Marco Rubio’s website, www.marorubio.com, you can find a very detailed outline of the Senator’s ideas for the future of higher education. The first line of the website’s higher education policy page reads, “Our higher education system is antiquated and broken in multiple ways” (2015). It goes on to list a number of ways that Senator Rubio plans to improve higher education, I will go through and discuss what I think the implications of his six main points might be. The first point is to “simplify existing incentives to help students pursue higher education.” Underneath this heading are two sub-points explaining that Rubio wants to simplify tax incentives and also simplify the federal financial aid application, both of which are good ideas in theory, but there’s nothing on the specifics.

The next main point on marcorubio.com is to, “Equip students and families with information necessary to make informed college decisions,” which goes on to state that Rubio wants to, “Make existing higher education information (including graduation rates for nontraditional students, transfers rates, student debt, post-graduation earnings, and likely employment outcomes) available online in an easily-accessible format to help students and families make well-informed decisions.” To a certain extent this is a great idea, and is already currently being done somewhat, however Rubio is looking to expand the information that is gathered. In 2013 he co-introduced a bill titled the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act that would greatly expand the data that colleges are required to report in their IPEDS data (as cited at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2518, 2015). However, opponents of the bill argue that there are privacy concerns that may be at risk (Stratford, 2015). The bulk of this bill wouldn’t really impact those of us working in higher education nearly as much as it would the folks working in the Department of Education, as they would be the ones responsible for ensuring that a lot of the data is kept up to date after a student leaves their institution. In reviewing what the bill is calling for, I assume that a lot of campuses already record the data for internal records, but may not report it to the Department of Education.

The next point on Rubio’s page is to, “reduce burden of student loan debt by establishing automatic incomebased [sic] repayment.” The two sub-points essentially say that Rubio wants to make income-based repayment (IBR) the universal repayment option and to allow those who have already graduated the option of consolidating existing loans into his IBR system. To be frank, IBR is not a new concept; there are several versions that are currently available for federal loans. There are several pros and cons to this part of his plan, however this would most likely not impact our field very much, and since this section is already longer than I anticipated, I am going to move on!  

The next topic on Rubio’s website addresses accreditation; he wants to “reform it to accommodate non-traditional education” (2015). Senator Rubio wants to create a new accrediting entity, and is quoted as having said that the accreditation process, “is currently controlled by a cartel of established colleges and universities, which use their power to block competitors from emerging” (as cited in Stratford, 2015).  Rubio wants to move to an “outcomes based” accreditation process that would help to expand federal education dollars to alternative forms of higher education. He has also supported for-profit colleges in the past, and was critical of the Obama administration’s attempts to regulate them more tightly (Stratford, 2015). The driving force behind Rubio’s desire to reform accreditation is that he wants to “transform higher education by exposing it to the market forces of choice and competition” (as cited in Stratford, 2015). Being that Rubio is concerned that federal loan funds are being used to “subsidize, ‘a myriad of nonacademic pursuits’” (Bidwell, 2014), it stands to reason that the new accreditation initiative that he is pushing for may have a negative impact on the field of student affairs. While we do not know exactly what he considers nonacademic pursuits, I personally am interpreting that as offices that are often found in student life. The last thing that I will mention about Rubio’s idea to revamp the accreditation process is a poignant analogy in Allie Bidwell’s article that relates it to judging hospital effectiveness. While there can be many folks involved in coming to conclusions regarding a hospital’s effectiveness, it is important that those judgements include opinions of doctors/medical professionals (as cited in 2014). Bridging the gap, it would only make sense to have higher education professionals making judgements regarding institutions of higher education.

The next topic that Rubio raises on his website is to “Invest in student success”. While phrases such as this a quite common in our profession, in this instance is quite literally referring to making a financial investment. He wants to develop student investment plans where individual people would invest in students’ college educations. Investors would be given information on the student they would be investing in, such as major, type of institution they are attending and academic records. Upon graduation students would then pay back a predetermined percentage of their income for a predetermined amount of years, regardless of if that amount adds up to more or less than the initial investment. In my eyes, this proposal is intriguing, but definitely has both pros and cons. Obviously the biggest pro would be that students could get college paid for and they wouldn’t have unpredictable or unwieldy student loan payments. However, if a student gets a very lucrative career right out of college, they may end up paying back significantly more money than their education cost, when that money could better serve that student in other ways. Along those same lines, it is likely that the investment plan would have a negative impact on majors where the anticipated salaries aren’t as high in that career field. It is fairly common knowledge that STEM majors will likely have a higher salary when they begin their career than say a k-12 teacher, social worker or higher education professional. While they are all vitally important folks in today’s society, investors will want the greatest return on their invested money. Looking at this through a financial lens, what investor would want to invest in someone whose projected income will likely be 30-40 thousand per year, when they can invest in someone who will make 60-80 thousand or more per year when the investor will see a set percentage of the income regardless of what it is? While this may not seem like it would have a direct impact on our field as a whole, there are many questions that would need to be answered regarding the investment plan. A couple of those questions are as follows: Would students whose education is funded through an investment plan be able to change majors? Would there be limits on campus involvement? These are just a couple of questions, I am sure there are many others that folks would like to see answered.

The final topic on Rubio’s website reads, “Modernize higher education system to fit 21^st century economy”. The points beneath this topic outline that the Senator seeks to, “increase access to career and vocational education, better utilize valuable on-the-job training, ease access to state colleges and online education opportunities, and increase hiring of non-degree workers.” At face value all of these seem to be incredibly beneficial actions steps, but without more specific details the implications for our field are challenging to discern. That being said, these notions seem to mirror several of Rubio’s stances that have already been discussed. Finally, I have reached the end of Marco Rubio’s stances and ideas for higher education as they are listed on his page. If nothing else, I do give him credit for actually having a clearly defined stance on the topic. However, in my opinion the implications of those ideas would likely have a negative impact on our field. Keep in mind, that similar to what I mentioned above, should Senator Rubio become president, his proposed changes wouldn’t happen overnight. Considering the speed that our government runs and how challenging actually implementing changes can be, I feel like Rubio’s plans would not totally come to fruition. This is similar to a saying that I heard long ago that goes something along the lines of, “you can land on the moon by shooting for the stars”.

Hillary Clinton (D)

Hillary Clinton, the current democratic front runner, is another candidate that has a clearly defined stance on higher education. Furthermore, she has opinions on multiple areas of higher education; she is concerned about affordability/access/accountability/accreditation (I realize that’s a lot to bunch together) and also sexual assaults on college campuses. I am going to start by talking about the first topic. On her website, www.hillaryclinton.com, you will find a “college” page on her list of issues. First and foremost, Mrs. Clinton states that, “costs won’t be a barrier”. I do have to say that her approach to addressing affordability is more realistic than some others that I have heard of/read. She doesn’t say that 4 year public institutions should be free, but that they can be paid for without debt (community college students would receive free tuition). She calls this plan the “New College Compact”. The first point underneath this topic explains that Pell grants won’t be used in calculating the no-debt-tuition, leaving Pell grant funds for students to use to cover living expenses. Part of this plan outlines that students would be expected to work 10 hours per week to help contribute, and also that family contributions would be “affordable and realistic”. Under Clinton’s plan, the federal government’s role is to cut loan interest rates, and to provide grants to states that commit to the New College Compact plan. States will be responsible for maintaining higher education funding, and reinvesting in it over time. Perhaps the most impactful part for the field of student affairs are the responsibilities for institutions of higher education, which is to “be accountable for improving outcomes and controlling costs to ensure that tuition is affordable and that students who invest in college leave with a degree”. Her plans for making this aspect a reality would definitely have some implications for us. First let’s talk about accreditation. Unlike Senator Rubio, Hillary does not want to completely change the accrediting system. Instead, she speaks about using Title IV funds to “ensure accreditors are open to low-cost, technology-enabled programs” (as cited in Jaschik, 2015). Also, Hillary is proposing holding institutions responsible for paying the government back a portion of the debt that their graduates aren’t repaying (Mulhere, 2015). While I don’t have all of the details regarding this proposal, I don’t have very high hopes for it or its impacts on institutions. Upon reading Mrs. Clinton’s statements regarding improving outcomes, a big part of me wonders how far into current outcomes and the development thereof she has looked. Most folks that are some-what knowledgeable of current assessment and accreditation practices in our field can tell you that we are constantly looking at how we can improve and effectively document said improvements. Her page wraps up the, “Costs won’t be a barrier,” section by talking about encouraging innovative and valuable education while cracking down on abusive practices that provide students with no value but put them in debt. This leads into her next point that “Debt won’t hold you back.” She states that current graduates with debt would be able to refinance their loans to a lower rate, and future undergraduate students would have lower rates as well. She also states that everyone would be able to enroll in a simplified, income-based repayment plan, which as I mentioned above, is already something that is available. Overall, this plan would cost $350 billion over ten years, which she proposes would be paid for by limiting certain tax expenditures for high-income taxpayers.

As her website points out, Hillary Clinton has been an active advocate that has worked to combat violence against women throughout her entire career; it comes as no surprised that she would continue to do so if elected to America’s top public office. She has a multifaceted approach to addressing campus sexual assault, though I must say that the main points outlined on her website seem like they are pretty common strategies already in place at many institutions. The main heading on the page reads as follows, “Hillary will build on the progress that has been made – and take on the problems we have yet to solve. Hillary’s plan to end campus sexual assault is guided by three core principles. (Hillary for America)” The first principle is to provide “comprehensive support to survivors.” To accomplish this, “Hillary will ensure that every campus offers survivors the support they need – no matter their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or race. Those services – from counseling to critical health care – should be confidential, comprehensive, and coordinated. (Hillary for America)” While the offices themselves may vary in title, exact services offered and resources available, the vast majority of campuses do have folks whose full time job is to address these very serious issues. I can see this commitment playing out in a couple of ways. One would be creating some sort of assessment to ensure that there is an acceptable minimum standard on every campus. However, as I alluded to above, available campus resources can vary greatly; some institutions may have greater trouble finding sufficient funding to get an office up to and maintaining what could be designated as a satisfactory level. Here is the other way that I can see this playing out; Hillary could work as an advocate to find federal funds (perhaps in the form of grants) to help schools that may not have the resources available to run such offices/departments. The next step in Mrs. Clinton’s plan is “Ensuring a fair process for all.” Essentially, the website outlines this as providing a fair and transparent process for all parties involved in a case, and ensuring that cases are taken seriously (Hillary for America). Again, this concept is something that a lot of campus strive to do already. Most likely, I think this commitment would come in the way of formal standards that outline how to handle sexual assault cases when they arise on campus. The third point on the page focuses on “increasing prevention efforts.” Under this point Mrs. Clinton states that she wants to increase programs that combat sexual violence, focusing on topics such as consent and bystander intervention. On top of increasing the number of programs offered, Mrs. Clinton wants to start them earlier, such as in secondary school before students even come to college. This would definitely be beneficial because there are times when campus sexual assaults are committed by people that aren’t students on those campuses. The information in such programs is definitely valuable to more than just college students.

Overall, I definitely think fighting campus sexual assault is a noble and worthy cause for Mrs. Clinton to address, however I do think she may want to adjust her approach. Her website outlines “Hillary’s plan to end campus sexual assault. (Hillary for America)” This may just be my cynical side, but I believe that the cold hard truth is that unfortunately it is not realistic to think that campus sexual assault can be eliminated entirely. If this were reworded to something like Hillary’s plan to combat campus sexual assault it could still be just as impactful, but wouldn’t seem as unachievable to me. Also, as I discussed above, a lot of what www.hillaryclinton.com talks about on this topic are initiatives that are already in place in some form on a lot of campuses. That being said, I definitely think this would be a worthwhile cause for Mrs. Clinton to address if she gets elected president.

Bernie Sanders (D)

The final candidate that I will discuss is Bernie Sanders. First, I do want to acknowledge that up until this campaign Bernie has been an independent candidate, however he is currently seeking the democratic nomination. To research Bernie’s stances on higher education I mainly used two websites, the first is his actual campaign website www.berniesanders.com, and the second, www.feelthebern.org , is a website that is run by volunteer supporters that has no official relation to Bernie Sanders himself. Bernie’s actual website has an issues page that states, “It’s time to make college tuition free and debt free,” and has six points that explain how he plans to do that. The first point is “Make tuition free at public colleges and universities.” While this is a nice concept, the supporting text really only talks about how other countries offer free tuition, and that some American institutions used to offer free or dramatically cheaper tuition. These statements likely do not come as a surprise to anyone working in higher education. Feelthebern.org attributes the increased cost of tuition to high pay rates for folks in “high-prestige positions,” and also to institutions employing “extraneous ‘administrators’” that the website claims are “overpaid for doing office work that does not directly relate to education.” It is statements like this that scare me as a student affairs professional. Though, Bernie’s website doesn’t state that he plans to take actions against such positions, I do worry that we may be facing some challenging times. The second point on Bernie’s website is, “Stop the federal government from making a profit on student loans.” Again, his website doesn’t have a clear explanation of what this means, but it does state that if Mr. Sanders is elected president he will work to prevent the government from profiteering off of college students. The third point on his site is “Substantially cut student loan interest rates,” which directly relates to the second point. Bernie wants to return student loan interest rates to 2.37%, which is similar to what they were in 2006, instead of today’s 4.29%. His fourth point allows current graduates to refinance their current loan debt. The fifth point reads, “allow students to use need-based financial aid and work study programs to make college debt free.” Here it is stated that public institutions would be required to meet 100% of the financial need of the lowest-income students. Furthermore, Bernie wants to significantly grow the federal work study program to over triple what it is today. The sixth and final point on www.berniesanders.com explains that the Sanders plan would be fully paid for by imposing a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators. Personally, I am a huge supporter of this funding idea, however I feel as though the amount of resistance it would receive would be near insurmountable. That being said, if Bernie is elected president I do hope that he tries to make at least some aspects of the Sanders plan come to fruition. Though, ideally for us he would not do so by calling on colleges to cut some of the “extraneous administrators” that www.feelthebern.org talks about, as I am interpreting many of those as student affairs positions. I worry that folks outside of our field may not understand the role that many of us play in the students’ educations, as our positions don’t all take place in the classroom.

Conclusion

Obviously, all of the candidates have different stances when it comes to higher education. What I have presented is only my take on the information that I gathered; I encourage you to go out and do your own research. To be frank, I honestly don’t think that higher education is the top priority for any of the candidates. Even if it were, no changes will happen overnight. That being said, no matter who is elected, it is likely that some things will change in our field. Furthermore, there are a plethora of topics that are important to each candidate that will impact not only our profession, but society as a whole! With how interconnected our society is, one decision or policy implementation will likely have ripple effects that will be felt in any number of ways.

In the United States we have the right to vote, and if you choose to do so (which I hope you do), it is your responsibility to get yourself informed. So again, I encourage you to check out the various candidates’ websites and support sites and see what they have to say. Keep in mind that those sites are going to focus on the positive impacts of their ideas and positions, so it would behoove you to check out some of the other independent sites that explain and critique the proposed policies. Now, I have only presented on the five candidates that I think are most likely to win; there are plenty of others out there and it’s a long road to the White House. If you’ve actually read this far, you likely have some interest in the 2016 presidential race. I implore you, please get and keep yourself and others informed! Primary elections begin in February and vary by state. If you aren’t registered to vote, please do so and encourage your colleagues and students to do so as well. Personally, I am facilitating a session during RA training to encourage my student staff to be engaged in this exciting political process, and work to engage their peers in the process. Regardless of political affiliation, informed conversations on presidential candidates and their stances can help to get and keep folks engaged. As I mentioned, no matter the outcome, changes will happen; it’s up to you to know what they are and be prepared for them.

References

Bernie Sanders on Education. (n.d.). Retrieved December 30, 2015, from http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-education/

Bidwell, A. (2014, February 10). Marco Rubio Calls for 'Student Investment Plan,' More Choice in Higher Education. Retrieved December 23, 2015, from http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/02/10/marco-rubio-calls-for-stu...

Cirilli, K. (2015, July 23). Trump: Why is federal government making money on student loans? Retrieved December 21, 2015, from http://thehill.com/policy/finance/248913-trump-why-is-federal-government...

Hillary for America starts right here | Hillary for America. (n.d.). Retrieved December 29, 2015, from http://www.hillaryclinton.com

Jaschik, S. (2015, April 10). Clinton proposes $350 billion plan to make college affordable | Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved December 29, 2015, from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/10/clinton-proposes-350-bill...

Mulhere, K. (2015, August 10). 7 Things You Need To Know About Hillary Clinton's College Plan. Retrieved December 29, 2015, from http://time.com/money/3990445/hillary-clinton-college-plan/

On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free. (n.d.). Retrieved December 30, 2015, from https://berniesanders.com/issues/its-time-to-make-college-tuition-free-a...

Quinlan, C. (2015, August 17). What Donald Trump Believes About Education. Retrieved December 21, 2015, from http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/08/17/3691685/trump-university/

Salzberg, S. (2015, August 14). Scott Walker Takes $250 Million From U. Wisconsin, Gives

$250M To Billionaire Sports Team Owners. Retrieved December 17, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/08/14/scott-walker-takes...

Savidge, N. (2015, September 14). On Campus: Tracking effects of UW budget cuts, work on tenure policies continues. Retrieved December 17, 2015, from http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/on-campus-tr...

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR DONALD J. TRUMP. (n.d.). Retrieved December 21, 2015, from http://www.donaldjtrump.com

Stratford, M. (2015, December 10). As he takes on traditional higher education, Rubio runs on policy wonkery | Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved December 22, 2015, from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/10/he-takes-traditional-high...

Student Right to Know Before You Go Act of 2015 (H.R. 2518). (n.d.). Retrieved December 22, 2015, from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2518

Ted Cruz for President. (n.d.). Retrieved December 21, 2015, from http://www.tedcruz.org

Steve Schuh is a Residential Learning Coordinator and Academic Associate at Winthrop University. You can contact Steve by emailing schuhs@winthrop.edu.