Subject: RE: REVISED DRAFT: college rollout
From: David Binder <[email-masked]>
To: Joel Benenson <[email-masked]>, Jim Margolis <[email-masked]>
Cc: Mandy Grunwald <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Katie Connolly <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2015 07:37:33 -0700
List-Id: <speechdrafts.hillaryclinton.com>

Agree with Joel's points on importance of including responsibility in the remarks.  In groups, we heard push back against free college education because it sounded like too big of a handout and some immediately thought of those who make take advantage of it, by being perpetual students, or not studying and putting in their time, etc.

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Joel Benenson
Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 7:36 AM
To: Jim Margolis <[email-masked]>
Cc: Mandy Grunwald <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; Katie Connolly <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: REVISED DRAFT: college rollout

I think Jim's expansion risks sounding like an entitlement program too much.

I think we have to make our language true to the core of her plan and who she is in demanding responsibility and accountability from everyone participating and wanting to participate in the college system.

 I don't think it's bad at all to say where Everyone does their part.
Compact works because it demands things from multiple place and echoing language of basic bargain still feels right here.
And this isn't an entitlement so I think the affordable for everyone willing to work for it gets at responsibility - which I think is a substantive difference implicitly with Sanders and pushing against "free".

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 8, 2015, at 9:36 AM, Margolis, Jim <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
Megan/Ann:
Sorry, I did one more read through.  I'm a little worried the take-away bite in the text doesn't do enough for us.
(current) It's time for a new college compact, where everyone does their part.  We need to make a quality education affordable and available to everyone willing to work for it.

Maybe something more like this:
It's time for a new college compact that allows everyone  to get ahead by getting a college degree - a degree that doesn't come with decades of debt but rather a quality education that's finally affordable and available to every family in America.  That's the way forward.

From: 'Mandy Grunwald' via Speech Drafts <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Reply-To: Mandy Grunwald <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Date: Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 9:05 AM
To: Joel Benenson <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>, Ann O'Leary <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Cc: "[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>, "[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>, Katie Connolly <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Subject: Re: REVISED DRAFT: college rollout

I like Ann's additions too but I have some concerns about the policy description in our first point.

Ann or Megan, could one of you please call me on my cell?

202 669-2899

thanks
Mandy Grunwald
Grunwald Communications
202 973-9400

-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Benenson <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
To: Ann O'Leary <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Cc: Megan Rooney <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>; Speech Drafts <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>; Katie Connolly <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Sent: Sat, Aug 8, 2015 7:18 am
Subject: Re: REVISED DRAFT: college rollout
Like the adds Ann has made.

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 8, 2015, at 2:10 AM, Ann O'Leary < [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
This is really good, Megan.  I've offered a few suggestions to make sure we are a bit stronger on accountability, we lead with our promise to families and students when we describe our compact, and we highlight innovation and on-line learning a bit more.

Thanks to Mandy and Joel - agree their framing and feedback was very helpful - I tried not to wonk it up, just refined at the edges.

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 4:46 PM, Megan Rooney <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
Hi all!  Attached is a revised draft for Monday's college rollout event in NH.  You'll see it's a lot leaner and meaner than the draft I sent around this morning.  I spent a really helpful hour-plus on the phone with Mandy and Joel and they had great guidance.

If you could get me any edits by noon tomorrow, I'd appreciate it.  Thanks!

**

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS ON COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY AND STUDENT DEBT
EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2015

It's wonderful to be back in Exeter.  Thank you, Danny, for that introduction.  And thank you all for coming out today.  I've been traveling all over New Hampshire, and everywhere I go - from Dover to Nashua to Glen to Windham - people ask great questions.  It must come from being the first primary state.  So today, I want to talk for just a little bit, and then I want to hear what's on your mind.

This election is about the choices we have to make as a country, and how they'll shape our children's and grandchildren's futures.  I believe that, in America, if you work hard and do your part, you should be able to get ahead and stay ahead.  That's the basic bargain that's always set our nation apart.  And I want to make sure we keep that bargain and strengthen it, so it holds true for this generation and the next.

Thanks to your hard work - and the hard work of people across the country - America has come back from the worst recession of our lifetimes.  We're standing again.  But we're not yet running the way we should.  Corporate profits are near record highs - but most paychecks have barely budged.  Costs for everything from childcare to prescription drugs are rising faster than wages. It's no wonder so many Americans feel like the deck is stacked in favor of those at the top.

We've got to do better.  We've got to get incomes rising again, so more hard-working families can afford a middle-class life.  We need strong growth... fair growth... and long-term growth.  That's how we'll achieve lasting prosperity - by building an economy that we all have a stake in, and that works for everyone.

Today, I want to talk about one way we do that:  by making college affordable and available to every American.

For millions of Americans, a college degree has been the ticket to a better life.  My grandfather worked his entire life in a lace mill - but my dad made it to college and was able to start his own small business, and that made a huge difference in our lives.  Then my parents scrimped and saved for years, so they could send me to a school across the country.  They knew that they were setting me on the path to a better future.  College still holds that promise today.  A lot has changed in this country - but that hasn't.

Across America, parents are starting college funds the day their kids are born.  High-schoolers - even middle-schoolers - are taking college prep courses and studying for the SAT.  Full-time workers are going to night school, even if that means heading straight from an eight-hour shift to a pile of homework.  If that's what it takes to get a better job - to give their kids better than they had - then they'll do it.

But here's the problem.  States are slashing education budgets.  Colleges keep raising prices.  In-state tuition and fees for public colleges increased by 55 percent between 2003 and 2012.  But your incomes didn't rise by that much, did they?  So families are left facing a painful choice.  Either you say, "We just can't afford it," and pass up on all the opportunities that a degree can offer - or you do whatever it takes to pay for it, even if that means going deeply into debt.

And more and more, that debt is holding people back.  Forty million Americans have student loans.  Together, they owe more than a trillion dollars.  New Hampshire's students are carrying the highest debt in the country.  And millions of Americans are delinquent or in default.  Even if they're doing everything they can to pay their loans, they just can't keep up.

The cost of this debt is real - not just on balance sheets, but in people's lives and futures.  I've talked to people who have so much student debt, they've put off buying a house, changing jobs, starting a business - even getting married.  I've met parents and grandparents who've co-signed loans and end up draining their savings or ruining their credit - all because they did what parents and grandparents are supposed to do - help out the next generation.

There are students who take out loans to pay for an expensive degree from a for-profit institution - then graduate and discover that, when it comes to finding a job, their degree isn't worth what they thought it would.

And the 40 percent of students who never finish college are left with debt and no degree to show for it - the worst of both worlds.  And that non-completion rate should trouble to all of us.  It's the highest in the developed world.

College is supposed to help people achieve their dreams.  But more and more, it's pushing people's dreams further out of reach.  And that's just wrong.  It's a betrayal of everything college is supposed to represent - and everything families have worked so hard to achieve.

This is also about our national competitiveness.  The rest of the world is working as hard as they can to out-do us.  China plans to double the number of students enrolled in college by 2030, which means they'll have nearly 200 million college graduates.  That's more than our entire workforce!  American workers can out-work and out-innovate anyone in the world - as long as they get the training and education they need to compete.

So we need to make some big changes.  We need to transform how much higher education costs - and how those costs get paid.  For too long, families have had to bear the burden of soaring prices, underinvestment, and too little accountability.

It's time for a new college compact, where everyone does their part.  We need to make a quality education affordable and available to everyone willing to work for it.

I've been traveling the country for months, talking to students and families, educators, legislators, and experts of every stripe - including young progressive activists who've put the issue of debt-free college and college affordability at the top of the national agenda.

And today, I'm announcing my plan to put college within reach for everyone.  We're calling it the New College Compact.  And we're posting it on our website, Facebook, Medium, Snapchat - just about everywhere we can think of.  I hope you'll check it out.  But for now, here are the basics.

Under the New College Compact, schools will have to control their costs and show more accountability to their students.

States will have to meet their obligation to invest in higher education.

The federal government will never profit off student loans.

No family - and no student - should have to borrow to pay tuition at a public college.

And everyone who has student debt will be able to refinance it at lower rates.

That's my plan.  It's ambitious - and we should be ambitious.  But it's also achievable.  And it would make a big difference in people's lives.

My College Compact comes down to two main goals.

First, we'll make sure that cost won't be a barrier.

Under my plan, you'll never have to take out a loan to pay for tuition at an in-state public university.  We're going to make community college free - that's President Obama's plan and we're making it ours too.  We're reforming Pell Grants, so students can use them for living costs as well as tuition.  We're offering special help to college students who are parents, because when you help a parent get an education, you're helping their kids, too.

We're going to work with historically black colleges and universities, because they serve some of America's brightest students, who need the most support and too often have gotten the least of it.  And we're going to help pay for college for students who agree to national service.  If you're willing to tutor America's kids or clean up our parks, the least we can do is support your education.

And second, we'll make sure that debt won't hold anyone back.

Under my plan, every borrower in America who already has student debt will get the chance to refinance at lower interest rates.  If you can refinance your mortgage or your car loan, you should be able to refinance your student loan.

If you do still end up taking out a loan - for example, to go to a private college - we'll cut your interest rates, so the government never makes a profit off your loan.

We'll make it easier to enroll in income-based repayment programs, so you'll never have to pay more than 10 percent of what you make.

We're going to help borrowers who are in default get back on their feet.  And we'll crack down on predatory schools and lenders and bill collectors.  If you defraud students, overcharge veterans, or mislead borrowers, we're going to do everything we can to stop you.

There's a lot more in my College Compact - from encouraging innovations like online learning and apprenticeships, so students can earn their degree in less time and move straight into a job... to strengthening the G.I. Bill, so more of our veterans can get their degree... to making sure colleges spending federal dollars on things that benefit students, like teaching and research - not marketing campaigns or big salaries for administrators.

I plan to make college affordability a major issue in this campaign - because it's a major issue for millions of American families.  Here's the bottom line.  An education shouldn't be something just for those at the top.  And it shouldn't be a burden.  An education should be affordable - and available - to everyone.

I remember how proud my parents were when I graduated college.  I remember how proud Bill and I were to see Chelsea graduate - I'll never forget how grown-up she looked that day.  And even though my new granddaughter is already growing up faster than I'd like, I can't wait to see her walk across a stage someday and receive her diploma. And I know that mothers and fathers and grandparents across the country feel the exact same way.

I want every young person in America to have their shot at that moment.  I want every hard-working parent out there to get the chance to see his or her child cross a stage - or to cross it themselves.  America should be a place where those achievements are possible for anyone who's willing to work hard to do their part.  That's the country I want to help build - for this generation and all the generations to come.

Thank you very much.  And now, let's hear from you.

--
Ann O'Leary
Senior Policy Advisor
Hillary for America
Cell: 510-717-5518
<8-7-15 draft NH college town hall 730pm - AOL.docx>

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