More on college financing in the presidential campaign – Joe Biden jumps in

Last spring, I wrote about Senator Elizabeth Warren’s college financing proposal for the San Francisco Chronicle.  This week, I analyzed for The Conversation former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent proposal to double the maximum Pell Grant as a way of increasing college affordability.  The two have taken very different approaches, and assuming they both stay in the race as viable candidates for the Democratic nomination, it will be interesting to see the attention each proposal receives.

Senator Warren’s college financing proposals

The 2020 campaign for president is already heating up, and the Democratic field includes almost two dozen candidates.  One of them, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, recently unleashed a widely-covered proposal offering “free college” and elimination of student debt for millions of Americans.  In an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, I analyzed why Warren’s proposal is not in the best interests of the nation.

Why any discussions of college affordability need to start with Pell Grants

image-20160729-25643-134ilqThere has been a good amount of discussion on the presidential campaign trail about the issue of college affordability and student loan debt.  I have written in previous blog posts about some of Hillary Clinton’s proposals, as well as those of Martin O’Malley.  This week, I wrote a column for the website The Conversation, where I described why any discussion of college affordability needs to start with the role of Pell Grants, the foundation of the federal government’s student aid programs.