In presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s newly-unveiled plan to make college more affordable and “debt-free,” Clinton plans to require students to work and then forfeit their “earnings.”
Under Clinton’s “New College Compact,” Clinton claims, “Costs won’t be a barrier” to attending public colleges and universities. The plan, which Clinton’s campaign expects to cost $350 billion over ten years, will make sure students “never have to borrow to pay for tuition, books, and fees to attend a 4-year public college in their state.” For students attending community college, tuition will be “free.”
In order to make college more affordable, families will be called on to contribute more money, states will be mandated to invest more in higher education, and colleges and universities will be “held accountable” to control the costs of education.
Students will also be required to work “10 hours a week” and “contribute” their earnings as part of doing “their part,” Clinton's fact sheet states:
"Students will have to do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week."
“Students will contribute based on wages from ten hours per week of work,” Clinton’s website elaborates.
The “New College Compact” also asserts, “Debt won’t hold you back.” The plan to reduce student debt calls for allowing people who have already accrued student debt to refinance their loans. For future students, interest rates would be cut to “reflect the government’s low cost of debt.” There will also be a simplified “income based repayment program” so that borrowers will “never have to pay more than 10 percent of what they make.”
Clinton expects her college plan will be “fully paid for by limiting certain tax expenditures for high-income taxpayers”—and by requiring students to toil away.
Clinton’s “New College Compact” is an alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt) plan to simply make public colleges and universities “free.”