Although Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appears increasingly unlikely to become the Democratic presidential nominee for 2016, his advocacy surrounding college education costs in the U.S. has changed the discussion surrounding the issue.
Adjusted for inflation, the cost of an in-state, public college education, combined with room and board has nearly doubled in the past decade, according to statistics collected by the College Board, a non-profit corporation best known for creating and administering the SAT.
The effectuality of Sanders’ college tuition policies are debatable and the odds of this particular Sanders platform piece surviving a Republican controlled congress are slim.
Nonetheless, Sanders raises the profile of the college cost issue and, as a result, forces other candidates to acknowledge this issue.
In this election cycle, multiple major Democratic candidates have made lowering college tuition costs a substantial part of their platforms. But Sanders declared his intention to make public college and university education free when he announced his candidacy last April.
Sanders' announcement was followed by announcements outlying plans to lower the cost of college education from other Democratic nominee candidates, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley delivering his in July and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton giving hers in August.
Neither Clinton nor O’Malley went as far as to promise to make college education free, but both were prompted to make college education cost a more prominent issue in their campaigns by the passionate response Sanders’ call to action received from younger voters.
However, this is an issue affecting more than just the young — college tuition costs also affect the parents of young voters.
About 64 percent of today’s burgeoning adults receive financial support from their parents, according to a Clark University study.
Nearly half of parents polled in this study said they provide their 18-29-year-old children with “frequent support when needed" or "regular support for living expenses" and named finances as a source of conflict with their children.
Of America’s 73 million millenials, nearly a quarter are college educated, according to U.S. census data. These former college students owe a collective $1.3 trillion and counting in student loan debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Together with their parents, these individuals form a powerful voting bloc that has been hurt by the rising cost of college.
Sanders is not the first politician to draw attention to this issue. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and President Barack Obama have both publicly worked on the issue, among others.
Legislation put forth in 2007 and 2014 also attempted to address some of the issues surrounding rising college tuition costs and student loan debt.
However, the cost of college has been rapidly increasing the since the 1970s, according to the College Board statistics, and at no point during that time period have all the major candidates for the Democratic or Republican presidential nomination come out with detailed plans to reduce the financial hardships associated with college.
This is that year, and win or lose, in part because of Sanders, more Americans want to know why education must come at such a steep cost.
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