Candidate Review - Higher Education - Former Governor Howard Dean

Howard Dean revealed his plans for higher education at a speech at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire on November 13, 2003.

Today’s higher education system simply doesn’t work because our political process has stopped working for all Americans.

To pay for his reckless tax cuts, President Bush administration had to cut Pell Grant funding for 84,000 students. Hundreds of thousands of students will be getting smaller grants. It under-funded financial aid by $1.4 billion. And the administration cut funding for AmeriCorps, giving students even fewer opportunities to pay for higher education.

When he signed the Higher Education Act of 1965, Lyndon Johnson said, “A high school senior anywhere in this great land of ours can apply to any college or university in any one of the 50 states and not be turned away because their family is poor.”

But that vision is far from fulfilled. If we stay on our present course, we’ll soon reach a point where only the wealthiest will be able to afford college.

. . . That is why I am proposing a new initiative that I’m calling the College Commitment to give every child the opportunity to go to college.

We will start early with a fundamental promise to every 8th grade student:

If you agree to prepare for college and graduate from high school, we’ll guarantee that you will have access to $10,000 a year in grants and loans for college.

After you graduate, you’ll never have to pay more than 10% of your income on loan repayment.

And by the end of 10 years of work, your loans will be paid in full.

Those students who enter public service will get an even better deal. If you become a teacher, a nurse, a police officer, a firefighter, or go into another high-need public service field, you’ll never spend more than 7 percent of your income on loan payments. I’m calling that the “Public Service Corps.”

Students who aren’t choosing a public service career because they’re worried about paying off their loans will now be able to follow their dreams after college. And we’ll address the pending shortages in nursing and teaching by giving kids an incentive to enter these fields. "