Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up on education?
On April 23, alongside charismatic Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Romney took a grand pivot toward the center on the federally subsidized student loan interest rates set to expire July 1.
Having almost finished the public event, Romney realized he’d forgotten to say something to the thousands of college students across America concerned with the soon-to-expire interest rates.
Here we go again. It’s called flip-flop fatigue, and Romney’s got it.
His symptoms are getting much worse, as he can hardly remember which side to pander to.
His recent ideological swing doesn’t match up with the previous hard line he took against government help with student debt or his stance on funding for higher education.
In March, a high school senior from Ohio asked Romney at a town hall meeting what he would do to help students pay for college. Romney replied, “It would be popular for me to stand up and say, ‘I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college,’ but I’m not going to promise that. … Don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”
Now that President Barack Obama has launched a campaign to extend low interest rates on federally funded student loans and signaled he’d make it central in the presidential race, Romney has drastically shifted his views.
During the press conference with Rubio, Romney stated that “with the number of college graduates that can’t find work or that can only find work well beneath their skill level, I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans.”
Let the Etch-A-Sketching begin.
If we’ve learned one thing from Romney, it’s that it’s better to look at his actions instead of simply listening to his words. After all, Mitt Romney is the “pander bear” of American politics.
Under Romney’s policies as governor of Massachusetts, fees on state college campuses increased 63 percent, according to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.
The fee hikes were enacted by each campus to offset deep budget cuts of about $140 million, or about 14 percent during the fiscal crisis.
Romney also came out in support of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s radical budget proposal — the same budget proposal that would cut $170 billion from funding for Pell grants, while allowing the interest rate for federally subsidized Stafford loans to double.
Many Republicans are far more interested in cutting taxes, largely for the rich, than they are in helping low- and middle-income students get a college education.
With the Ryan budget, money being cut from higher education would be used to offset the $3 trillion in tax cuts for high-income households and corporations.
Romney’s advice for students: “The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to shop around.”
President Obama doesn’t have to pander to young people — he’s already wildly popular with them because he’s held the same pro-education stance all along.
The Obama administration has taken historic steps to provide Americans with a fair shot at an affordable college education, and during the president’s weekly address, he reiterated that “higher education cannot be a luxury. It’s an economic imperative that every family must be able to afford.”
Some proponents of the Ryan budget believe that curbing student loans would counteract the curbing of federal aid. But making it harder for our younger people to afford higher education is not the answer to helping the economy or our country’s financial woes.
Obama points out that “when a big chunk of every paycheck goes toward loan debt … it’s painful for the economy because that money is not going to help businesses grow.”
Raising the rates would put students in a deep financial hole before they even get a shot at success.
So, the question remains: Where does Mitt Romney actually stand on higher education? And after years of flip-flopping, does it really matter?