Skip to footer

Clinton, Sanders to share stage in New Hampshire to talk student debt

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will attempt to shore up support among younger voters by appearing with former rival Bernie Sanders to discuss her plan to ease college's financial burden.

|
Mike Segar/Reuters/File
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton talk over each other during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, in February. The pair are set to return to UNH on Wednesday to promote Clinton's proposals for reducing student debt.

When Hillary Clinton speaks in New Hampshire on Wednesday, she'll take the stage alongside her former opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. 

The Democratic nominee and Senator Sanders are joining forces for an afternoon rally and discussion on college affordability, the Clinton campaign announced in an email. The pair are scheduled to "discuss their shared belief that cost should not be a barrier for anyone who chooses to go to college, and student debt should not hold Americans back after they leave school," according to local ABC affiliate WMUR 9. 

The joint appearance comes as Mrs. Clinton, who has struggled to win over Sanders's millennial fanbase, makes an intensified push to appeal to young voters. Efforts in recent weeks include an interview with comedian Zach Galifianakis on his spoof talk show "Between Two Ferns," and an op-ed to millennial voters for Mic, a website aimed at young readers.

"The Millennial generation is a key voting bloc in this election, and it’s clear that the campaign must do more to earn their vote," said the Clinton campaign's communication director, Jennifer Palmieri, in a statement last week. 

Part of that effort is a focus on college affordability, one of the signature aspects of Sanders's platform. In July, Clinton released a revised education plan proposing free tuition at in-state, four-year, public colleges and universities by 2021 for families with annual incomes under $125,000, and immediate free tuition for families with annual incomes under $85,000. 

"[E]veryone who wants to go to college should be able to without drowning in debt," Clinton wrote in her op-ed for Mic last week. "That's why I worked with Sen. Bernie Sanders to design a plan that will let everyone attend college debt-free." 

In New Hampshire, where Wednesday's rally will be held, Sanders won the Democratic presidential primary over Clinton by a margin of 60 percent to 38 percent. Recent polls shows Clinton leading Donald Trump in New Hampshire by an average margin of 43 percent to 38 percent. 

Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, has said less about college affordability. Last week, he said that if elected he would work with lawmakers to tie federal funding and tax breaks for colleges and universities to a "good faith" commitment by those institutions to lower tuition costs. 

"If universities want access to all of these federal tax breaks and tax dollars paid for by you, they have to make good faith efforts to reduce the cost of college," Trump said at a rally near Philadelphia on Thursday. 

In a four-way matchup that includes Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Clinton currently has the support of 31 percent of voters under the age of 35, compared to Trump's 26 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published September 14. 

This report contains material from Reuters and the Associated Press. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Clinton, Sanders to share stage in New Hampshire to talk student debt
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0926/Clinton-Sanders-to-share-stage-in-New-Hampshire-to-talk-student-debt
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe