As the race for the U.S. Senate seat from Missouri is tightening, the candidates are taking on the bread-and-butter issues they hope will resonate with voters.
Secretary of State Jason Kander, who is challenging GOP incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt, on Wednesday met with a group of college students and university administrators about the high cost of college.
Kander told the group that he believes those costs – and resulting high student loan debt – is a middle-class issue that affects generations of families.
Rachel Young, who is majoring in economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said she chose the school because it costs less than others. With scholarships and financial aid, she said she still pays about $9,000 a year. Still, she feels fortunate.
“I’m going to be pretty lucky and I think it’s only going to be about $20,000 or $30,000 (debt), which is the national average,” Young said. “Then I want to get my master’s (degree) so it’s going to go up.”
Kander pointed to a study that showed the average debt for a Missouri graduate of a public or private four-year institution is nearly $26,000.
Missouri’s cuts in spending for higher education were brought up by an administrator, an issue that arose last week in a report released by Auditor Nicole Galloway. It found that state lawmakers cuts forced the state's four-year colleges to increase fees by 112 percent per full-time student and that tuition and other costs went up 25 percent.
But Kander blamed the funding problems on Congress’ failure to act on college affordability, putting state legislatures around the country “in a bit of a vise.”
“At a time when you’ve had, around the country, the cost of tuition go up around 14 percent, but you haven’t had incomes go up that amount, it’s clear that Congress has just failed to act,” he said.
Congress should raise the minimum wage, so students working part-time jobs can better pay for school, Kander said. He also called on Congress to allow students to refinance loans like they would, for example, a house; to place a cap on federal student loan interest rates; and to expand the need-based Pell Grant Program.
Asked to respond, Brian Hart, Blunt’s communications director, said Blunt has worked to help college students while serving as the chairman of a Senate subcommittee on education appropriations.
“Sen. Blunt is a former high school teacher, college president, and the first person in his family to go to college and knows firsthand the challenges of paying for college,” Hart said.
Hart added that Blunt lead the effort to expand Pell Grants so they are available to students year-round, and supported Congress’ recent reform of the student loan programs, which dropped average rates.
Peggy Lowe is investigations editor at Harvest Public Media and KCUR. You can find her on Twitter @peggyllowe.
