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Rubio Campaign Press Release - Here's What Conservatives Are Saying about Marco Rubio's Plans for College Affordability

November 09, 2015

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The set of reforms Marco has been pushing for several years to overhaul and modernize higher education focus on empowering students to know what they're getting out of the degree they're paying for and opening up the market for new providers and innovators — in other words, harnessing free-market forces to bring down the inflated cost of higher education.

It's no surprise, therefore, that conservatives have embraced his ideas. Here's just a sampling of the praise:

The Wall Street Journal editorial board (October 5, 2015):

Feigning outrage that college is too expensive is a bipartisan pastime, so it's refreshing to see a presidential candidate taking the cost-drivers seriously. Senator Marco Rubio is highlighting an obscure network of higher-ed busybodies known as accreditation agencies, and more politicians should study up on how to reform this racket.

"Our higher education system is controlled by what amounts to a cartel of existing colleges and universities, which use their power over the accreditation process to block innovative, low-cost competitors from entering the market," Sen. Rubio said in a speech this summer. Last week he introduced a bill with Sen. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) that would test a voluntary certification process for vocational and nontraditional education. . . .

Reihan Salam writing in National Review (May 10, 2013):

Kelly Field of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports on [Marco Rubio's] bipartisan Student Right to Know Before You Go Act of 2013, which aims to provide students and parents with reliable information on earnings by program of study and state of employment, cumulative debt levels, transfer rates, and graduation rates at U.S. colleges and universities. The higher education lobby has fought similar measures in the past on the grounds that a federal "unit record" system threatens the privacy of students, and so students and parents have no reliable way of knowing, for example, how many Pell Grant recipients at a given school actually graduate within five years. This data can be anonymized, and so the privacy concerns are almost entirely a canard. But the widespread availability of reliable data on student outcomes would, for obvious reasons, represent a grave threat to colleges and universities that offer a substandard education and that leave many students with heavy debt loads and little else. . . .

Preston Cooper of the Manhattan Institute's Economics21:

On Monday, Hillary Clinton rolled out her proposal to make college more affordable, which aims to allow students to pursue a "loan-free" education at public colleges and universities. The plan, which offers federal incentives to states which guarantee their students a debt-free education, is hideously complex. It also does not address the central problems in America's higher-education system.

In contrast, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate from Florida, has sponsored a number of bills that would enable students to take advantage of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), publicize information about graduation rates and potential earnings at different institutions, and make it easier for individual lenders to invest in students so that they would be able to avoid taking out college loans. . . .

America has a choice. . . . Clinton is setting up the college-finance debate as a question of how much we should be spending. Senator Rubio is asking how we can make what we are spending work better.

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity's Richard Vedder:

Senator Marco Rubio [has] proposed some very specific ideas on higher education that deserve serious consideration. . . .

Yuval Levin in National Review:

More than most of the presidential candidates, Marco Rubio tends to make a point of talking about higher education reform in his stump speech. He mentions rising costs and loan burdens, and talks about making college more affordable by breaking down the barriers that restrict competition and by allowing parents and students to know more about job prospects for graduates of particular schools and majors (a reference to the "Know Before You Go" act, to make more data that's held by the federal government available to the public, which Rubio has sponsored with Ron Wyden). . . .

I actually think the kind of approach to higher-education policy that Rubio, among others, is suggesting is in fact exactly what liberal [arts] education in America requires. . . .

The Conservative Reform Network (October 9, 2015):

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently introduced the Higher Education Innovation Act with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). Rubio's legislation would create an alternate, voluntary system for accreditation and would make a program's outcomes a greater emphasis during its accreditation review. When releasing his program Rubio said, "This alternative accreditation system we've proposed is built on higher quality standards and outcomes than the current accreditation system and would mark an important first step to shake up a higher education system that leaves too many people with tons of student loan debt and without degrees that lead to good paying jobs." . . .

We applaud Sens. Lee and Rubio's efforts to reform our outdated accreditation system.

George Leef of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Forbes (February 27, 2014):

When it comes to higher education, most politicians are "cheerleaders." They're content to speak the usual pieties about the importance of college and never do anything that could upset the status quo.

In a recent speech at Miami-Dade College, however, Florida Senator Marco Rubio suggested several higher education changes that might seriously upset the status quo. . . .

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni's Avi Snyder:

It is long past time higher education reform got this kind of attention from Washington. Politicians from both parties are realizing that higher education is in crisis, and that only increased transparency and accountability can change it for the better. Bravo to Senators Rubio, Wyden, and Lee. We hope many more in Congress will join your fight.

The American Enterprise Institute's Jim Pethokoukis:

New reforms proposed by GOP senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio attempt to deal with the college cartel and the related issue of how to make higher-ed more market-like. What their ideas have in common are a variety of market-based approaches to improving educational opportunity. . . .

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Marco Rubio, Rubio Campaign Press Release - Here's What Conservatives Are Saying about Marco Rubio's Plans for College Affordability Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/313574

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