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2016 MILLENNIAL MEMO (June 8, 2016): Keeping tabs on higher education debates

2016 MILLENNIAL MEMO (June 8, 2016)

We’ve got our presumptive nominees, folks. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have shown weaknesses with Millennial voters, so who is going to bring them into the fold and how? We’ve got 6 weeks until Cleveland, 7 weeks until Philly, and 152 days until Election Day. Don’t miss a thing this cycle, sign up for Millennial Memo updates here.

WHAT WILL THE MILLENNIAL BERNERS DO?: “A majority of millennials who support Bernie Sanders would vote for Hillary Clinton if the Vermont senator were to drop out of the race, according to an MTV poll released Monday. The poll, which surveyed 500 millennials ages 18 to 34 in mid-May, found that 57 percent of Sanders’ supporters would go to Clinton while only 3 percent would vote for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. Additionally, 22 percent said they would write in another name and 18 percent would not vote at all… The MTV poll also showed the profound effect that millennials believe Sanders’ campaign has had, with 96 percent of respondents believing that the senator’s message will affect the general election campaign even if he is not the Democratic nominee. Sanders, according to the poll, also increased overall interest in the election among millennials, with 90 percent of those surveyed responding that the 74-year-old lawmaker made them care about the election, and 76 percent saying he made them care about politics.” (Real Clear Politics, 6/6/2016)

DONALD’S TRUMP U DEPOSITION COVERS ED REFORM, SAT STATEMENTS — COMING TO A TV AD NEAR YOU?: Politico’s Maggie Severns & Josh Gerstein report: “Attorneys [are] planning to file with a federal court in San Diego excerpts of videos of Trump’s two recent depositions in the [Trump University] case. That’s likely to trigger a battle over whether the videos should be made public… The newly filed transcripts of portions of Trump’s testimony provide more fodder …Asked… whether Trump University was designed to capitalize on people’s ‘fantasies’ about making a fortune in real estate, the veteran developer said it was just common sense to paint a rosy scenario. ‘I believe in playing to people’s desires.’ … Trump said… During the deposition last December, plaintiffs’ lawyer Jason Forge also put Trump on the spot about statements in a 2000 book, ‘The America We Deserve,’ in which he branded education reform efforts a failure and complained that a revised scale for SAT tests amounted to ‘fraud.’ ‘The education industry is delivering less for more money and claiming no ground has been lost. It’s fraud, pure and simple,’ Trump wrote.”

HILLARY BACKS LIMITS ON OUT-OF-STATE & FOREIGN STUDENTS: “Hillary Clinton backed a plan on Thursday that would limit the number of foreign born and out-of-state students who can attend California state universities. The California Assembly approved that plan on Wednesday, allowing the University of California system to restrict the number of non-Californians to 10% of total enrollment by the fall of 2022. ‘One of the things we are going to is get the cost of college down and I heard just today that the legislature in California is going to limit the number of foreign students,’ Clinton said at a community conversation at a Mexican restaurant in Perris, California. …‘I approve of that.’ Clinton said the reason the number of non-Californian students increased in recent years is because they were willing to ‘pay the full cost.’ ‘But we have got to get back to using public colleges and university for that they were intended,’ Clinton said. ‘If it is in California, for the children in California. If it is in New York, for the children in New York.’ … [CA] State Auditor Elaine Howle found that the number of non-Californian students in the… [UC] system jumped 82 percent between the 2010-11 and 2013-14 academic years. ‘The university’s decision to increase the enrollment of nonresidents has made it more difficult for California residents to gain admission to the university,’ Howle wrote.” (CNN, 6/2/2016)

TEXAS AG INVESTIGATED TRUMP U, BAILED ON INVESTIGATION: “Investigators in the Texas Attorney General’s Office extensively scrutinized a for-profit real estate investment training program known as Trump University. The investigators went undercover to attend seminars, interviewed dozens of students and requested hundreds of documents. Ultimately, records show, they determined in May 2010 that the program had illegally engaged in false advertising, and they asked their bosses to sue unless the business agreed to pay the state $5.4 million. And then, everything stopped. Trump University decided to leave Texas, and the bosses decided not to file the lawsuit… Abbott received donations totaling $35,000 from Trump three years after deciding not to sue… Abbott, who is now governor and has endorsed Trump, argued he did his job by using an investigation to force a bad business out of the state.” (Houston Chronicle, 6/2/2016)

SENATE SPECIAL

NEW HAMPSHIRE–AYOTTE TOUTS SUPPORT FOR PRIVATE REFI BILL & REPAYE: Writing in a blog post on Medium, Senator Ayotte says: “Students who want to refinance in the private market at a lower rate can’t do so. The federal government should not be standing in your way if you can find a repayment plan that makes more sense for you and your economic future, especially when the feds are projected to make $47.2 billion on student loans over the next two years. That’s why I have introduced a bill to give borrowers an option to refinance their student loans at a lower rate. And I’m supporting legislation to make it easier and simpler to pay back your loans. I’m also backing legislation to increase student loan counseling, establish a single, simplified income-driven repayment option for student loan borrowers.” The refinancing bill requires disclosure that doing so would make participating borrowers ineligible for income-based repayment and federal forgiveness programs.

MISSOURI–SENATE LABOR-H APPROPS SUBCMTE CHAIR BLUNT TOUTS BIPARTISAN DEAL THAT RESTORES YEAR-ROUND PELL:

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(Source: Sen. Roy Blunt’s Twitter Account, 6/7/2016)

ARIZONA–McCAIN ON EARNING YOUNG VOTERS’ SUPPORT: In an interview with the New York Times this past weekend, Senator John McCain discussed the anxiety plaguing Arizona’s electorate. “‘I’ve been feeling it out there for some time,’ Mr. McCain said. ‘In the southern part of the state here, they are not feeling the recovery at all. Then there is this whole issue with these young people and kids carrying around all this debt… That’s the Bernie effect,’ he said, referring to Senator Bernie Sanders’s youth appeal in the Democratic primaries. He added: ‘The turmoil in this race is more than I’ve ever seen. Younger, newer voters are registering for only one reason, to vote against Trump. So my challenge is to convince that younger, newer voter that I am for them.’”

WISCONSIN–FEINGOLD RELEASES VIDEO ON JOHNSON’S STUDENT LOAN COMMENTS: At a townhall meeting in March 2015, Sen. Ron Johnson commented that students see student loans as “free money” because “young people don’t really necessarily understand finance.” In a new video out from the Feingold campaign features UW-Madison students being asked whether they thought students loans are “free money.” In a news release announcing the video, former Senator Feingold says that Johnson’s comments were “pretty out of touch, given that students in the [University of Wisconsin] system graduated with $28,000 in student loan debt on average in 2014.” Check out the video here.

WISCONSIN–JOHNSON BLAMES HIGH TUITION ON GOVERNMENT: From the higher education section of Senator Ron Johnson’s campaign website: “The federal government provides billions of dollars every year to students through various student aid programs such as Pell Grants and Perkins Loans. These efforts are an attempt to improve access to higher education, a result that we all want. However, higher education remains out of reach for many Americans. Tuition at colleges has increased more than 2.5 times the rate of inflation. The best evidence shows this may have been an unintended consequence of the government’s involvement.”