PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 1988
%
Th
e
C andidates
Off
quare
CPS
Dukakis:
Bush:
f» ,
Plan helps
middle-class
By Michael O’Keeffe
tCPS)--Denlocratic presidential
nominee Michael Dukakis un
veiled a plan Sept. 7 to let stu
dents repay their college loans
at a rate that depends on how
jBUch they earn after they grad-
^T^e idea-which in fact has
tgpn tried at a number of cam-
’jitrses“immediately drew mixed
.yi^iews.
•yrknice Carnes, deputy under
secretary at the U.S. Dept, of
;^ucation, said it would “soak”
^dents who got well-paying
jobs after graduation.
*«-He predicted students training
take higher-salaried jobs
"vwiald refuse to join the pro-
■ gram, forcing the federal gov-
SiSnment to kick in dollars to
rSwer the loan costs of lower-
^iaid students who would never
Spay all that they owed.
'Dukakis’aid Thomas Herman,
of course, was more enthusias-
siastic.
“This is not only feasible, it is
desirable,” he said. “It will al-
jow everyone who is qualified
;jand wants to go to college to go
Hto college.”
^ “We’re extremely pleased
-that one of the presidential can-
I^dates has come forth with a
rSew and imaginative program
i^Ior college loans for people from
*;afll walks of life,” said Richard
JBosser, president of the Na-
□Jonal Association of Indepen-
; dent Colleges and Universities.
: Janet Lieberman of the U.S.
jgtudent Association, which rep
resents campus student govern
ments in Washington, D.C., said.
Sit’s a very creative program to
^elp middle-class families, but it
^ doesn’t really address the needs
low-income people.”
r" “What low-income people
..rteed is grant money,” said Mer-
□towitz of the American Council
"J&i Education. “They’re the least
_ likely to take out loans. Both
3£iresidential candidates need to
ptjevelop plans to address the
* needs of the neediest.”
The Dukakis plan would allow
> aily students, regardless of fam-
:Uy income, to get a federally
■guaranteed student loan, repay
_ ij - through mandatory payroll
jisjeductions during the student’s
■[working years for as long as
*'3iey work, or “buy out” of the
»^&xjgram at any time by paying
"a lijmp sum.
paying off your loans,” said Lie
berman. “We appreciate the
creativity.”
Yale University had a similar
loan program for 3,600 students
from 1972 to 1978, in which stu
dents could borrow a portion of
their tuition from the school and
begin repaying it after gradua
tion at a rate of four-tenths of
one percent-or $4 per year-for
each $1,000 borrowed.
Dukakis’ plan by contrast,
“What low-income
people need is grant
money,” said Merko-
witz of the American
Council on Education.
“They’re the least
likely to take out
loans.
would have students repay their
loans at a rate of $8 per year for
every $1,000 borrowed.
“We still think it’s a plausible
idea,” said Yale’s Donald
Routh, director of financial aid.
Routh said Yale dropped the
idea because it required mas
sive amounts of capital to main
tain it. Administrators figured it
would take 17 years before pay
ments would reduce the out
standing balance owed the uni
versity.
Yet fears that students antic
ipating a high income would not
participate in such a program
proved not to be true, Routh
added.
Game’s own U.S. Dept, of Ed
ucation also has promoted an
“income contingent loan” pro
gram, now being tested at 10
campuses.
In his last two federal college
budget proposals, in fact, Presi
dent Reagan asked Congress to
replace virtually all Guaranteed
Student Loans with income-con
tingent loans, but Congress,
heeding educators’ testimony
that it was too early to tell if the
idea is workable, opted for a pi
lot program instead.
Under Dukakis’ plan, loan re
payments would come directly
all the principal and interest
they owed in a prescribed time.
Under Dukakis’s plan, loan re
payments would come directly
out of graduates’ paychecks,
much like their Social Security
payments. Graduates would not
have repayments deducted from
earnings over a certain cap,
probably to be set somewhere
between $50,000 and $100,000 a
year.
Graduates who borrowed
$20,000 to get through college
and earned, say, $20,000, would
repay the government $500 in a
year, or 2.5 percent of their in
come.
Students would take out the
loans, which would be guar
anteed by the government,
through banks.
Aaron thought it interesting
that Dukakis, who has trailed
Republican presidential nomi
nee George Bush in the polls
since mid-August, unveiled the
“substantive” proposal because
he thinks it’s something the
American people want.
But although he commended
the Massachusetts governor for
developing a program with
meat, Aaron feared it will be
used against him.
“Things are a little out of
hand. The politicans are carped
on because they don’t offer any
thing substantial. Then when
they offer something substan
tial, special interest groups
come out with complaints about
technical minutiae. It all comes
down to jealousy. They’re jeal
ous because they didn’t think of
it first.”
Bush says
yes to aid
By Michael O’Keefe
“I have been going around the
country saying I want to be
known as the ‘education presi
dent,”’ George Bush said during
a campaign stop in California
this summer. “This reason is
simple: Opportunity is what
America is all about, and educa
tion is the key to opportunity.”
An educated workforce. Bush
believes, is the key to a prosper
ous economy. To prepare that
workforce, he promises more
student aid, plans to help fami
lies save for their children’s edu
cation and programs to bring
more minority students to cam
puses.
He says his U.S. Dept, of Edu
cation would avoid the con
frontational style of President
Reagan’s Education Depart
ment under William Bennett.
And while all that might sound
very attractive to a national col
lege community buffeted by
eight budget cuts and White
House criticism, a lot of people
in higher education think
George Bush is full of bunk.
Bush “will do whatever his ad
visors tell him to do to get
elected. Hell, it’s politics,” said
Dr. Robert Clodius of the Na
tional Association of State Uni
versities and Land Grant Col
leges.
While Dr. Aims McGuiness of
the Education Commission of
the States thinks “you can take
the vice president at his word:
He wants to be the education
president.” He wonders whether
Bush would take the political
heat of funding college pro
grams at the expense of, say, de
fense.
“Whoever is elected president
has to face three major prob
lems,” McGuiness said. “They
will have to deal with the budget
and trade deficits, the high
priority placed on defense
spending and the commitment
to entitlements for older people,
such as Social Security.
“He can’t do anything about
education if he doesn’t address
those problems first.”
McGuiness, Clodius and other
education professionals note
Bush offered public support
for—and certainly no public re-
believe he
will continue to
emphasize the va
lue of education for
all people,” said
Bush advisor Shir
ley Gordon.
sistance to—the Reagan admin
istration’s budgetary attacks on
federal college funding.
But now the vice president
calls for maintaining work-
study, the still-unproven, in
come-contingent loan program
and Pell Grants for low-income
students.
For middle-class students, the
vice president, like his Demo
cratic opponent, Gov. Michael
Dukakis, proposes creating a
College Savings Bond. The bond
would be similar to U.S. Savings
Bonds, except that interest
earned would be tax-free if the
bond is applied to college ex
penses.
Helping students pay for col
lege should be “one of our high
est priorities in the 1990s,” Bush
says.
“The ony thing he’s wedded to
is the college savings bond
hw-As a result, graduates who
jobs with high salaries
1. could pay back more than the
Sthe interest and principal on
Jtheir loans, while low-income
r; students may never pay back all
[;they borrowed.
^ “The problem with Dukakis’
»plan is it depends upon people
Swho are likely to make reasona-
“ ble incomes being willing to get
Sf Soaked,” Carnes said.
S Rosser believed the federal
f government will have to subsi-
jjdize the program to keep it vi-
Jable-something Dukakis says
•won’t be necessary-but in the
• long run would deal “with the
* student loan default question in
5a very effective way,” thus sav-
; ing taxpayers millions of dol-
^ lars.
Z Because the government
r would take its payment directly
; out of grads’ paychecks, the de-
L fault rate-at least theoretically-
?-would be minimal,
i “It’s nice that under this plan
■ypu can graduate and going into
a low-paying job like teaching
1988
OFFICIAL PRES
FOR PRESIDENT
a. To vote this b
you wish to vd
b. A vote for the na
of that party, thj
c. If you tear or de
aero
£
LLOT
STATES
e name of the poHtical party for whose candidates
Candidates for President and Vice-President is a vote for the Electors
are on file with the Secretary of State,
mark this ballot, return it and get another.
DEMOCRATIC
To Yore for Candidates Listed Below
o
Mark Within This Circle
For President and Vice-
President of the United
States:
MICHAELS. DUKAKIS
LLOYD M. BENTSEN
REPUBLICAN
To Vote for Candidates Listed Below
o
Mark Within This Circle
For President and Vice-
President of the United
States:
GEORGE BUSH
DAN QUAYLE
NEW
ALLIANCE
To Vote for Candidates Listed Below
o
Mork Within This Circle
For President and Vice-
President of the United
States:
LENORA B. FULANI
WYNONIA BREWINGTON BURKE
State of North Carolina
General Election
November 8. 1988
Chairman, State Board of Elections
plan,” said Becky Timmons of
the American Council on Educa
tion (ACE). “It’s something
we’re interested in. It could be
an important vehicle for the
middle class. But Bush has not
laid out concrete plans for the
poor.”
“He’s ignoring a whole sector
of the population,” Janet Lieber
man of the United States Student
Association (USSA) said.
The vice president, a Yale
grad, does have a long record of
supporting black colleges. Many
black college presidents credit
Bush with helping their institu
tions secure federal grants.
Bush, too, has been a long
time supporter of the United Ne
gro College Fund, donating half
the royalties he receives from
his autobiography Looking For
ward to the fund.
While a Texas congressman
from 1967 to 1970 Bush did vote
for the major education funding
bills that arose.
Education, in fact, is one
arena where Bush appears
eager to distance himself from
the Reagan administration, but
many campus denizens unre-
pentedly resentful of Reagan,
wonder where he was when they
needed him.
“The question is, where has he
been for the last eight years? “
asked Michael Edwards of the
National Education Association.
“For a lot of people it is going to
take some convincing, but
they’re going to doubt his credi
bility.”
But Terrell Bell, President
Reagan’s first Education Secre
tary, noting vice presidents are
supposed to play subservient
roles, didn’t “think it’s fair to
say the vice president should be
responsible for the president’s
policies.”
Although Bush avoided crit
icizing the Reagan administra
tion’s education policies in pub
lic, Bell said, he did so often
during cabinet meetings.
“I believe he will continue to
emphasize the value of educa
tion for all people,” said Bush
advisor Shirley Gordon, presi
dent of Washington’s Highline
Community College.
“Just the phrase ‘education
president’ indicates he wants to
give education a higher priority,
a different emphasis than we’ve
seen under President Reagan,’’
said Dr. Richard Rosser, of the
National Association of Indepen
dent Colleges and Universities.
And even Bush skeptics are
delighed the vice president is
paying attention to them, meet
ing with them and including
them in his speeches.
“That he speaks to education
is a healthy sign,” said Lieber
man of the USSA, perhaps one of
the Reagan administration’s
most outspoken education crit
ics.
“I’m delighted he’s put so
much attention on education,”
said Prof. Gloria Hom of Califor
nia’s Mission College, another
Bush advisor. “I think Rush will
work better with education than
Bennett has.”
Still, the ACE’s Timmons cau
tioned all the good intentions in
the world won’t count without
cash.
The vice president’s proposal
to freeze federal spending fof
one year to reduce the budget
deficit, she maintained, “would
constrain the prospects of doing
anything for education that’s
current and vital.”
“The real gutsy stuff is what
his priorities will be when it
comes to budget requests,” ClO'
dius said.