Why Hillary’s College Plan Stinks

Hillary’s college plan is not as bad as Bernie’s- because it’s hard to come up with anything quite as harmful as Bernie’s scary fantasy – but it still spells devastation to universities such as mine.

The plan will work great for states that are guaranteed to have Dem governors forever and ever. If there is the slightest chance of a Republican governor getting elected, Hillary’s  (and Bernie’s even more so) plan will lead to universities like mine (ULMs) closing their doors.

At this point, the only thing that keeps us alive is our right to charge tuition. Once that right is gone, any Republican governor of Rauner’s or Brownback’s ilk will easily kill all of the ULMs in the state. He’ll start negotiating with the federal government about the size of the state’s contribution vs the amount of federal grants and while the negotiation drags out, ULMs will have enough time to expire. It only takes a semester or two at most.

Right now we are caught in the battle between Democrats and Republicans and are only managing to keep our doors open thanks to tuition. Take away tuition, and any such “budget impasse” simply kills us. Then students will really pay no tuition because there will be more public universities to pay it to.

Other than that, Hillary’s plan is not as ridiculously dedicated to micromanaging professors as Bernie’s, but it also has some vague wording that makes it clear we’ll be pushed towards expanding the administrative bloat, introducing standardized testing, and multiplying online courses at the expense of real teaching.

The only good part of the plan has to do with helping people pay down students loans. That part makes sense. The rest is really horrible and I hope nobody actually tries to implement it because I don’t want ULMs to die just yet.

So to summarize, Hillary’s college plan means death to ULMs while Bernie’s plan means a humiliating painful death to ULMs.