Clinton proposes tax credit, grants to make college affordable
PLYMOUTH, N.H. --Recalling her own days as a lonely freshman, presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday proposed a range of initiatives aimed at making it easier for college students to pay for and complete their education.
Clinton said there is no guarantee that the United States will remain a great nation with a growing economy if it doesn't do more to make higher education more affordable.
"Higher education has never been more of a financial burden, but in today's global economy, it's never been more important," she said at Plymouth State University. "When it comes to higher education, we should not be playing catch-up with the world, we should continue to be leading."
The centerpiece of the senator's plan is a proposal to more than double an existing tax credit for students and their families from $1,650 to $3,500. Taxpayers would be able to claim 100 percent of the first $1,000 of college expenses and 50 percent of the next $5,000, Clinton said.
"This tax credit is the heart of my plan because I want to reward people who are trying to do better for themselves," she said.
To help students stay in school, Clinton proposed $250 million in grants for colleges and universities that develop innovative programs to boost their graduation rates, particularly for low-income and minority students. Noting that fewer than two-thirds of students who start college ever graduate, she described calling her parents from Wellesley College as a freshman and telling them she wanted to come home.
"I remember how homesick and lonely I was when I went to college. I just felt like I was in over my head, that everyone in the college was smarter than me," she said. "My parents said, 'You have to stick it out for the semester,' and luckily, things changed. But a lot of people have no one to talk to about that."
Clinton also proposed increasing the maximum amount available to Pell Grant recipients, providing $500 million in grants to community colleges, doubling the tuition assistance provided to AmeriCorps participants and spending $250 billion on apprenticeship and job-training programs for those who don't go to college.
Students and their families would get help making decisions about college through an online cost calculator that would tell them roughly how much aid they are likely to receive and how much it would cost to attend a given school. Colleges also would be required to set multiyear tuition and fee levels for each incoming class.
"When you start college year one, you should know what you're going to have to pay until you graduate," Clinton said.
Estimating that Americans spend 100 million hours a year filling out financial aid application forms, she proposed a simpler process: families would check a box on their tax returns, and the Department of Education would calculate their federal aid eligibility.
"These forms are tedious, confusing and 100 percent unnecessary. That's why I'm getting rid of them," Clinton said.
Clinton said she would pay for her education initiatives, along with the retirement savings incentive she proposed earlier this week, by freezing the estate tax at projected 2009 levels. Taxing estates of more than $7 million per couple would bring in $400 billion over 10 years, she said.
Under President Bush's first tax cut, the estate tax shrinks through this decade, disappears in 2010 and reappears at older and higher rates in 2011. Some Republican presidential hopefuls have called for repealing it entirely.
"Hang onto your pocketbooks," responded Summer Johnson, a spokeswoman for Republican National Committee. "It's ironic that Hillary will talk about 'affordability' of anything while she pledges to spend billions in taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to pay for all of her proposed new social programs."
Later Thursday, Clinton gave her stump speech and answered questions in the barn of a Canterbury apple orchard. Voters sat on bales of hay, an American flag hung against the weathered wood walls and artfully arranged apples and pumpkins spilled from overturned baskets.
A man visiting from Austria told Clinton that upon arriving in Washington, D.C., he was amazed to see so many homeless people on the streets. Clinton offered no specific proposals to reduce that number, but said the solution lies in recognizing the different reasons for homelessness.
"I don't think we've yet figured out the best way to do this," she said. "If we don't have more affordable housing, if we don't have more substance abuse treatment programs and if we don't have more mental health programs it's hard to get these people off the streets."
Another out-of-the-ordinary question came from a woman who asked how the United States' relationships with other countries would change "when the person at the helm has a lot less testosterone."
Clinton sidestepped the question a bit, saying that her experience visiting more than 80 countries and meeting many world leaders would help her repair the damage to the nation's international reputation. She also noted that many other countries have or have had female leaders.
"A lot of other countries have had women, so we're a little lagging behind here," she said. "I think it will be viewed positively, but I think it will also serve as a symbol of the way the United States has worked across our country's history where we're always knocking down barriers."
