CONNOR HOFFMAN
Managing Editor
Come January of next year, Donald J. Trump will become the 45th President of the United States, and as president he will have much influence over issues that affect college students like loan availability and rates, government financing and debt forgiveness. Trump first announced his plans for reform to our college loan system at a rally in Ohio on Oct. 13.
The plans Trump laid out in this speech are actually quite liberal in regards to this issue, and the reforms he has pledged are even more liberal than the current loan rates system we have in place.
“We would cap repayment for an affordable portion of the borrower’s income, 12.5 percent, we’d cap it,” said Trump at the Ohio rally. “That gives you a lot to play with and a lot to do. And if borrowers work hard and make their full payments for 15 years, we’ll let them get on with their lives.”
The current system requires borrowers to pay 10 percent of their income, and they have to wait 20 years to have their debt forgiven, according to TIME. This rate is a decrease from what it was during the Bush years when borrowers had to pay 15 percent of their income and wait 25 years to have their debt forgiven.
Since Trump’s position on loan forgiveness is for the most part liberal, some conservative scholars have already criticized Trump’s proposed reforms to the college loan system.
“They are way off on their numbers,” said Jason Delisle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “If you were going to give loan forgiveness in 15 years, you’re going to forgive a lot more debt than you’re going to make up for in the form the higher payments they’re proposing, by a lot. I don’t even need to run the numbers. It’s so obvious.”
Some of the other policies he has proposed are much more in line with traditional conservative thinking.
According to an interview the Trump campaign gave to Inside Higher Ed, Trump will fight proposals for debt-free college and tuition-free college, and he wants to get the government out of the lending business and to restore the role to private banks. At the Ohio rally, Trump also said that endowments should spend more on students to lower the cost of college and that he would push reconsider if those universities with large endowments deserve to keep their endowments tax-exempt.
Trump’s loan forgiveness plan is way too drastic of a plan to possibly work. Loan forgiveness is an issue that we must look at, but we must remember the U.S. government loans out quite a lot of money, and like Delisle said, this five year lowering in loan forgiveness will seriously cause problems with the system. According to Federal Student Aid, this year the government spent $690.3 billion on both the Stafford Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans.
Other parts of his agenda, like his assault on endowments, are just typical political attack lines. Yes, endowments may abuse their funds and build unnecessary fancy buildings or stadiums, but most Americans go to a college that doesn’t have an endowment that has $1 billion, the criteria most use for what constitutes a large endowment. That’s only about 100 colleges in this country.
Also, his plan to get the private banks more active in the college lending process may be the worst part of this entire plan. Seriously, this is his idea to help lower loan rates? Generally the free market is a more reliable option than the government, but our loan system would only get worse if banks were put in charge.
Trump’s plan for college affordability reform really doesn’t add up, and for some reason, he has chosen to blend the worst elements of liberal and conservative policy on this issue to create a truly awful policy plan.