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 "We do not need timid tweaks to the old system. We need a holistic
overhaul," Rubio said in a policy speech in Chicago. "We need to
change how we provide degrees, how those degrees are accessed, how
much that access costs, how those costs are paid, and even how those
payments are determined."
The speech was part of a move by the U.S. senator from Florida to
raise his visibility on the campaign trail after focusing on Senate
business recently. Rubio is one of 14 declared candidates vying to
represent the Republican Party in the November 2016 election.
It also gave Rubio the chance to expound on what has become his
candidacy's central theme: preparing America for a future shaped by
globalization, automation, and rapid technological change.
Rubio’s remarks were "very much an effort to win the support of
middle class, moderate Americans who play a key role in general
elections," said Jesse Rhodes, a professor of political science at
the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Rubio warned that the path to prosperity for the American middle
class has narrowed not as a result of a cyclical, self-correcting
downturn. “It is born of a fundamental transformation to the very
nature of our economy."
To that end, Rubio has embraced rhetoric that sometimes sounds
atypical of conservative candidates: proposing a child tax credit
that he calls pro-family, calling for subsidies to assist
minimum-wage workers, and, as he emphasized on Tuesday, pushing for
a new approach to higher education that is more grounded in teaching
high-level skills that will enable graduates to compete in a global
business environment.
Because of the current the four-year university system, he said,
"many young people are graduating with mountains of debt for degrees
that will not lead to jobs, and many who need higher education the
most – such as single parents and working adults – are left with few
options that fit their schedules and budgets,” Rubio said.
To break up what he called the higher-education “cartel,” Rubio
pledged to create a new accreditation process that would allow
low-cost providers, perhaps largely online, to compete with
established schools.
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“There’s no question that accreditation needs to be reformed,” said
Barmak Nassirian, policy director for the American Association of
State Colleges and Universities. “But the simplistic charge that
it’s just a cartel, that it’s only interested in keeping insiders in
and the outsiders out, that’s obviously too extreme.”
Rubio, himself saddled with student loans as a college graduate,
wants students to be allowed to repay loans based on their
postgraduate incomes. He also wants to allow investors to pay a
student’s tuition in return for a percentage of the student’s income
after graduation.
He has called for colleges to tell potential students expected
salaries for given degrees before students commit themselves to a
major.
After the speech, Rubio left for a three-day trip to Iowa, an early
voting state. Social conservatives such as Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker, who is expected to announce his candidacy next week,
populist candidate Ben Carson, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky
have appeared to hold an early advantage in Iowa.
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert;
Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Tom Brown)
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reserved.]
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