Democrats debate college costs

Shelby Saylors, For the Review

Five democratic candidates battled it out in front of the American people on Tuesday.

Topics such as foreign policy, global warming, gun control, emails, economy and education were in the spot light as the democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee, discussed their ideas and plans for the future.

College costs are a main concern of many college students throughout the nation, especially here at Linfield.

Options are becoming more limited with the Perkins loan being cut off and students are now scratching their brains to figure out how to pay for college.

Some of the candidates explained their plans for making college affordable, which is a hot topic for many college students.

Sanders wants to make all public colleges and universities free to any person looking to go to college regardless of their financial status or need.

“I will pay for my program,” he said, “through a tax on Wall Street speculation which will not only make public colleges and universities tuition-free, it will substantially lower interest rates on college deb.”

This would mean that the 1% would be paying college tuition through taxes.

However, Clinton fired back saying that she would not pay for Donald Trump’s kids to go to college, getting a laugh from the crowd.

Clinton proposed that she would let “the 40 million Americans who currently have student debt will be able to refinance their debt to a low interest rate.”

However, she also proposed that students should have to work 10 hours a week.

Clinton said that this would be a way for students to help out accomplish this huge task of getting rid of student debt.

Though she never gave an explicit plan on how she would accomplish this, Clinton’s proposal would only lower the cost of tuition. Not make it free.

Sanders proposal for free tuition is only for public schools and would not apply for private schools.

Clinton’s plan allows students who are currently taking out loans to refinance them at lower interest rates.

Her plan also lowers the interest rates for students who will need to borrow money in the future to pay for their education.

Both candidates emphasized making college more affordable, but the focus is on public schools.

It is still unclear about the future affordability of private schools like Linfield.

This means that Wildcats will have to wait and see if all these candidates from either side of the isle will take us into account or even help provide more funds to help make it easier to pay more college.