What Romney Should Have Said About Higher Ed

This piece (below) caught my eye the other day, and unfortunately I think that Romney took exactly the wrong tack when responding to a young person’s queries about higher education in America:

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The high school senior who stood up at Mitt Romney’s town hall meeting here today was worried about how he and his family would pay for college, and wanted to hear what the candidate would do about rising college costs if elected. He didn’t realize that Mr. Romney was about to use him to demonstrate his fiscal conservatism to the crowd.
The answer: nothing.
Mr. Romney was perfectly polite to the student. He didn’t talk about the dangers of liberal indoctrination on college campuses, as Rick Santorum might have. But his warning was clear: shop around and get a good price, because you’re on your own.
“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,” he said, to sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory here. “Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”

This sort of response strikes me as a major disservice to economic conservatism and to a liberty-based philosophy in general, and it simply gives the Left an opportunity to suggest that Republicans don’t have any tangible solutions on real-world problems like the cost of, and access to, higher education, and social mobility in general. None of these things need be true. Unfortunately, Gov. Romney chose to grasp for the low hanging fruit of an applause line for his angry-white-male audience, instead of addressing the issue the way that Paul Ryan or Mitch Daniels would have, or in the way that Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich both did during the presidential debates this year.
First, Romney should have cited his commitment to social mobility in this nation. He needed to discuss how we’re creating a 21st Century economy, and how that requires a highly skilled, highly educated workforce. There needed to be a connection made with the student. The student never should have been used as a foil to draw applause from angry Baby Boomers who would likely begin to riot if Romney had made the same comments about Social Security and Medicare.
Secondly, Romney should have explained the economics of higher education. It’s not hard to illustrate how the student loan industry has grossly inflated the cost of college beyond its market value. Romney could’ve made a joke about how no sane person would ever pay $200,000 dollars for a philosophy degree. That sort of quip would probably get the crowd laughing, but with the student, not at the student. Romney could have then explained that Democrats have engaged in a form of crony capitalism with banks over student loans, guaranteeing the loans they make to students and shielding them from bankruptcy so that rational lending decisions don’t have to be made by either the student or the lender, leaving 18-year-olds on the hook for six figure debts decades later. Romney could have explained that by stripping away the government money and the government protections for lenders, everyone would have skin in the game, rational decisions would return to lending, and a true market for higher education would develop, along with prices returning to market rates.
Third, Romney should have echoed Newt Gingrich’s idea from the debates that, once student loans are taken out of the equation and costs come down to earth, students who need financial aid can be put on various work-study programs that require 20 hours of work per week while in school, with the earnings going towards cost of attendance. The student in this scenario comes out of school debt-free, and is actually in a position to start his or her life by purchasing a car or real property from one of those Boomers in the audience who is likely looking to sell their overpriced home.
Had Romney answered the student in the ways that I just described, he would have provided Americans with competing visions over the way forward for America. By dismissing the question in the way that he did, Americans are left believing there is only one path forward for America in terms of higher education and social mobility, which is the crony capitalism and path towards fiscal ruin that the Democrats offer. Plus, the optics of the exchange are simply horrible, pitting a wealthy, middle-aged presidential candidate and a crowd of baying Baby Boomers against a kid who was brave enough to ask an honest question. Similar to the Sandra Fluke kerfuffle, Republicans are being branded as the Party of Angry Old White People, with the young, the aspirational, and the optimistic as their opponents. All of this makes Republicans seem like bullies. And nobody likes a bully.
I realize that economic conservatism is difficult to explain in a sound bite. But I submit to you that Republicans won’t win again until they find a messenger who has the ability to do so. Economic conservatism is an ideology that can’t be sold in a half-a-loaf manner. Doing so either makes it sound unrealistic, such as promising tax cuts with no spending cuts, or mean-spirited, such as promising spending cuts with no alternative to those relying on the spending. Explaining how markets work and how economics works in a positive manner, that results in greater choices and options and growth for those on the ground, is the way to win America. Expecting howling masses of old white people to win the war of ideas is something that should be left to the carny barkers on talk radio and Fox News. If Mitt Romney wants to be president, he has to do better.

March 5, 2012, 4:04 pm

Romney in Ohio: Want College? Can’t Afford It? Too bad.

By DAVID FIRESTONE

 

Yana Paskova for The New York TimesMitt Romney listens to a question from the audience at a town hall meeting at Taylor Winfield in Youngstown, Ohio on Monday, March 05, 2012.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The high school senior who stood up at Mitt Romney’s town hall meeting here today was worried about how he and his family would pay for college, and wanted to hear what the candidate would do about rising college costs if elected. He didn’t realize that Mr. Romney was about to use him to demonstrate his fiscal conservatism to the crowd.
The answer: nothing.
Mr. Romney was perfectly polite to the student. He didn’t talk about the dangers of liberal indoctrination on college campuses, as Rick Santorum might have. But his warning was clear: shop around and get a good price, because you’re on your own.

“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,” he said, to sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory here. “Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”
There wasn’t a word about the variety of government loan programs, which have made it possible for millions of students to get college degrees. There wasn’t a word urging colleges to hold down tuition increases, as President Obama has been doing, or a suggestion that the student consider a work-study program.
And there wasn’t a word about Pell Grants, in case the student’s family had a low enough income to qualify. That may be because Mr. Romney supports the House Republican budget, which would cut Pell Grants by 25 percent or more at a time when they are needed more than ever.
Instead, the advice was pretty brutal: if you can’t afford college, look around for a scholarship (good luck with that), try to graduate in less than four years, or join the military if you want a free education.
That’s the face of modern Republican austerity. Don’t talk about the value of higher education to the country’s economic future, and don’t bother to think about ways to make it more accessible to strapped families. Tell students not to take on more debt than they can afford, wish them well, and move on.
Of course, a few minutes later, in answer to another question, there was a classic Romney moment. He recalled that when he was governor of Massachusetts, he successfully pushed for a state program (known as the Adams scholarships) that gives four years’ tuition at state universities and colleges for students in the top 25 percent in test scores and grades.
So there is a role for government in helping some students go to college? Perhaps everyone but good students are on their own? So much of the time, what Mr. Romney seems to mean depends on who he is trying to impress at a given moment.

by Dave Gaultier @ 1:38 pm. Filed under Mitt Romney