The Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday evening with an unconventional virtual opening night program, featuring former First Lady Michelle Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other major names endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden alongside his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris.
While higher education – and particularly college affordability – was a hot topic for Democratic candidates on the debate stage in the primaries, education got little play the first night of the convention, with one reference to student loan debt by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and a mention of the school-to-prison pipeline by Sanders.
As colleges struggle to figure out reopening plans, Dr. Pedro Noguera, dean of University of Southern California’s school of education, thinks it’s a “mistake” if higher education is left out of the conversation.
Even though the Democratic Party sees educators as a part of their base, “my hunch is that it won’t be a focus,” he said. “All around the country, we’re talking about getting schools up and running … It’s a big story. But I think that education too often doesn’t get the attention it needs and deserves. Conventions are not a time when politicians like to talk about complex issues.”
But Dr. Gary Orfield speculates higher education is bound to come up as the convention continues. He’s the co-director of the Civil Rights Project and a professor of education, law, political science and urban planning at the University of California Los Angeles.
Orfield expects some discussion about tackling student loan debt and college affordability more broadly, as well as expanding support for state governments as the “funders of higher education, which are in desperate straits right now.”
The importance of higher education policy is “kind of a consensus” in the Democratic Party platform, Orfield said. “I think we’ll hear a lot about it. I think we’ll hear a lot about it in the general election campaign particularly.”
