Balloon Juice has started doing this series, following Bharat Ramamurti.

Bharat Ramamurti has launched a recurring feature – Trump v. Biden, but not as a cage match or a horse race. You know, actual policies!

This week, higher education!

Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) posted at 10:51 AM on Tue, Feb 20, 2024:
This week’s edition of Biden v. Trump on the issues: higher education.

A thread on what they did as President and their very different plans for a possible second term. 1/

https://t.co/emCp9L31D4
(https://x.com/BharatRamamurti/status/1759984218199789902?t=aLVgsrUwUTZNrY_02zWPDw&s=03)

You know, ACTUAL POLICY AND POLICY POSITIONS.

Not a horserace, on the age of the President.

Federal Pell Grants help address the cost of attending college. The typical student receiving a Pell Grant comes from a family making under $30,000 a year.

Pell Grants used to cover ~80% of public college costs. Over time, it dropped to only ~25%. 2/

As President, Trump repeatedly tried to slash funding from the Pell Grant program.

That included a proposal to take $1.9 billion in Pell Grant funding and send it to NASA to fund trips to the moon (seriously). 3/

While Trump tried to cut Pell Grant funding, Biden wanted to double the size of the Pell Grant over time so that it would go back to covering most of the cost of college. 4/

Biden has been able to secure multiple Pell Grant increases in the last few years, totaling about a 15% increase in their value. Progress towards his goal of doubling these Grants by 2029. 5/

What about student debt relief?

Let’s start with Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF): a program created in 2007 to give debt relief to borrowers who spend ten years in the military, as a teacher, as a police officer, or in other forms of public service. 6/

Trump repeatedly proposed eliminating Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 7/

While Trump failed to kill Public Service Loan Forgiveness by law, his administration effectively killed it in practice — denying relief to 99% of public service applicants on their watch. 8/

Biden vowed to fix Public Service Loan Forgiveness — and did. His Administration has now provided more than $50 billion in relief to 800,000 members of the military and other public servants. 9/

Another important debt relief program is income-based repayment (IBR), which has been around for decades.

IBR caps monthly payments at a percentage of a borrower’s income, and forgives the loan balance after the borrower makes 20 years of payments. 10/

Just like with Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the Trump Administration failed to fix problems with income-based repayment plans, resulting in borrowers not getting the relief they deserved even after making all their payments. 11/
Biden directed his administration to fix the IBR program so people could get the relief they had earned. Thanks to those efforts, nearly a million borrowers have gotten almost $50 billion in relief. 12/

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-nearly-5-billion-additional-student-debt-relief
In addition, Biden created a new income-based repayment plan that’s much more generous. Many people will see their monthly payment cut in half. Others will see it cut all the way to $0. 13/

One other important note about Biden’s track record on student debt relief. Working with Congress, he changed the law so that student debt relief would be tax free. No one getting relief now faces a big one-time tax payment. 14/

Biden tried to provide debt relief of at least $10,000 to 40 million borrowers. Six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court – including three appointed by Trump — blocked that plan. Now Biden is pursuing other legal avenues to broad-based relief. 15/

So what would a second term look like for Biden and Trump on higher education?

Republicans want to kill Biden’s new generous income-based repayment plan. With Trump’s support, millions of borrowers could see their monthly payments jump. 16/

Trump is also likely to take another run at eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, denying benefits to members of the military, teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public servants. 17/

Biden has made clear in his budgets that he wants to continue to expand Pell Grants so they double by 2029. A second Biden term would likely mean more progress towards that goal. 18/

https://www.ncan.org/news/600417/President-Biden-Pushes-for-Another-Historic-Pell-Grant-Increase-in-New-Budget-Proposal.htm
And a second Biden term would mean more progress towards getting public servants and middle-class borrowers the relief they are entitled to under existing debt relief programs. 19/

Those are the differences between Biden and Trump on higher education. Another area with stark contrasts between the two leading candidates.
At every turn, President Biden has been trying to help people. And, the Republicans want to hurt people.

It is that simple.