“You can’t go into a discussion — especially with anyone under the age of 30 — and not have the issue of student debt raised,” said Amy Walter, national editor of The Cook Political Report and a frequent news commentator.
Indeed, 7 in 10 seniors who graduated from public and nonprofit colleges in 2013 had student loan debt, with an average of $28,400 per borrower, according to The Institute for College Access & Success’s Project on Student Debt.
“Each candidate is going to have to an answer for that,” Walter said.
Walter made her remarks at the 2015 Summer Workshop of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, or CHEA, during a talk titled “The Changing Political Landscape for Higher Education and Accreditation.”
Her talk comes at a time when accreditors are facing increasing expectations from government to assure that institutions offer quality education that pays off in the long run.
According to Walter, the 2016 presidential race hinges largely on “two major forces that are going to ultimately bump up against each other”: map and mood.
