Donald Trump is running a post-modern campaign. There are no absolute truths, no values. There’s no ideology. Everything is self-referential. Thus far, issues are embraced only to the extent they inflame the most powerful passions.
Hillary Clinton seems to be running a totally different campaign, one based on experience and policy plans. You may doubt her authenticity. But the facts of the campaign speak for themselves, especially with respect to Clinton’s robust PreK and college affordability plans.
Most of us in the education policy world thought we’d see nothing more from Trump other than stoking anti-Common Core fervor and at some point anti-affirmative action passion. But once again, he’s two steps ahead in what he surely hopes is the most cynical of elections.
Trump’s campaign is floating a relatively big (for him) higher education platform. His campaign’s co-chair and national policy director, Sam Clovis, outlined broadly three key planks. Conceptually, the Trump campaign appears ready to:
- Reverse the long-fought move to Direct Lending and revert to something akin to the old Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) system whereby banks issued taxpayer-subsidized student loans;
- Enable banks and schools to make it harder for liberal arts majors to obtain federal student loans; and
- Require colleges to pay a portion of defaulted student loan costs.
The first two planks of the apparently forthcoming Trump plan especially trouble us.
For years, under the FFEL student loan system, banks received (very sizable) government subsidies to issue federal student loans fully backed by the federal government against default. It was a sweetheart deal for big banks.
In part because of federal subsidies and federal guarantees, the private bank Sallie Mae used to have a higher rate of return on equity than almost all Fortune 500 companies. More than Apple, more than Microsoft.
But that just speaks to the potentially large cost to taxpayers. What about the impact on students of what Clovis reportedly described?
According to Inside Higher Ed, Clovis explained, “If you go to Harvard, you can major in anything you want, and once you get in the door, you’ll be OK . . . But not all colleges are in the same system.”
“If you are going to study 16th-century French art, more power to you. I support the arts,” Clovis reportedly said. “But you are not going to get a job.”
So with limited access to federal financial aid, working class and low-income students will have to forgo a liberal arts degree unless they can access private scholarship money or take out expensive non-federally-backed, private student loans?
Guess who long has been the number one seller in the very lucrative private student loan business? Sallie Mae.
Maybe Trump ‘s campaign co-chair is floating this higher ed plan because the campaign wants to spin attention away from Trump University. Maybe Trump is becoming a more traditional candidate who lays out a somewhat detailed plan for how he’s going to improve the country. Maybe he thinks this issue is a good one on which to draw a contrast.
Regardless, Hillary Clinton’s challenge is not to do what we’ve done above – critique the particulars of the Trump higher education plan or even point out that Trump University was or is a scam. That’s for people like us to do.
In contrast, Hillary Clinton’s challenge is to: (1) convince the country that Trump is too arrogant, impulsive, and narcissistic to be trusted with the Presidency, and (2) articulate a narrative of why we should vote for her and what her pragmatic plan is to make our lives, your life, better.
The first task shouldn’t be too hard. For the second, I’m no communications expert, but I suspect her best narrative is “America is Great, and Together, We can Make it Greater.” (H/T to the great Sara Mead for most of that suggestion.)
Hillary Clinton’s plans on PreK education and college affordability already are pretty clear, and we would argue compelling. Whether voters will see them and her other policy proposals that way depends on whether she can sell it. Not an easy job when going up against an elite salesman. But Hillary has substance on her side.
To what extent do ideas still matter? Are we in a postmodern world? We don’t know. There is one thing about which we’re certain, though. At its core, this election is as much about us as it is about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.