All Eyes on Democrats’ Affordability Agenda

The leaders of the Democratic Party have made the rounds since their historic midterm victories last week, offering hints to how they will use their congressional majorities to deliver on their campaign promise of affordability. Most Americans are more worried about gas and groceries than the cost of college, and Democrats have so far offered more slogans than a plan for higher ed. But making college more affordable will be a goal for several key lawmakers. The college and university presidents I reached out to after the election said affordability is their top priority for Congress, too. 

On the New York Times podcast The Daily, Chuck Schumer, the expected incoming Senate majority leader, said his party is aligned behind a simple goal: tackle costs, chaos and corruption. Bernie Sanders, in line to reclaim his seat as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is once again talking about taxing the billionaire class to, in part, make public colleges and universities tuition-free. Speaking with Inside Higher Ed days before the midterms, two House Democrats vying to lead the House Education and Workforce Committee, Bobby Scott from Virginia and Suzanne Bonamici from Oregon, said they’ll focus on college access and affordability. 

Most observers expect funding the Pell Grant program to be the top higher ed priority for Congress. The program is estimated to be $17 billion short this year, and the gap could grow to $136 billion by 2036 if lawmakers don’t find the money. “A focus should be on families who are struggling to find financial avenues to attend college,” Bill Pink, president at Ferris State University in Michigan, told me.  

Beyond funding, Pink and other leaders want Congress to reassess the loan caps introduced in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Susan Burns, president of the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, said the divide between graduate and professional degree loan limits has lowered confidence in fields such as education and created barriers for less resourced students. “I am confident that there are ways to create more responsible borrowing policies without devaluing these professions or risking access to them,” she said.  

The higher ed experts IHE’s federal policy reporter Jessica Blake reached out to after the midterms agree that tweaking the caps is more realistic than spending time repealing OBBBA policies, just to have them saved by Trump—the self-described “Mr. Veto.” Focusing on a less costly financial aid policy that changes which programs are considered professional and eligible for the $50,000-per-year graduate loan cap would be a better use of Democrats’ time, they said. 

But Democrats will also need to defend what Congress has already funded. In a higher ed context, Schumer’s plan to tackle chaos would thwart the mayhem wrought by two years of executive orders, canceled research funding, bogus investigations and redirected grants. With greater oversight powers and control over the budget, Democrats will have more tools to protect higher ed programs from the administration’s efforts to cut or delay funding, and to scrutinize Secretary Linda McMahon’s attempts to close the Education Department. Fighting the administration’s defunding of minority-serving institutions, for example, will reinstate a reliable source of funding for underresourced students and institutions. 

“Stability” is what the sector needs from Democrats, Nick Swayne, president of North Idaho College, a two-year public institution in Coeur d’Alene, told me. “Congress has approved and funded many programs that have been hijacked by the administration,” he said. Democrats should “propose clear deadlines for releasing appropriated funds, reporting of withheld funds and safeguards against efforts to run out the clock without spending the authorized funds on the authorized program,” he said. 

Democrats can do more than just undo the damage, though. They could, for example, advance the College Transparency Act, which would require the government to collect and share more data across agencies to track student outcomes after they graduate. A pet project of the outgoing GOP chairman of the Senate HELP committee, Bill Cassidy, the act has languished in Congress for a nearly a decade. Cassidy pushed the bill through committee ahead of his departure, and it could have bipartisan support in a Senate vote.  

Making college more affordable fits squarely into the promises put forth by new lawmakers to ease the cost of living. If they spend the next 24 months focused on sustainable long-term funding for Pell, restoring support for student aid programs and increasing transparency in college costs, higher ed may indeed be more affordable than when they started.