Republican voters imagine within the worth of faculty levels however harbor issues about accountability and affordability, based on a new nationwide survey performed by Third Method, a center-left suppose tank, and GS Technique Group, a Republican polling group.
The survey of 500 Republican voters discovered that almost all respondents, 63 %, view four-year levels as beneficial—together with 60 % of voters who’ve “very favorable” perceptions of President Trump. Commerce colleges and group schools take pleasure in significantly strong assist; 91 % and 87 % of respondents, respectively, view them favorably. By comparability, 69 % maintain favorable views of four-year schools and universities, and 37 % really feel positively towards for-profit universities.
On the similar time, Republicans surveyed imagine essentially the most wanted reforms in larger ed as we speak are higher accountability and higher affordability.
Most respondents, 87 %, assist elevated accountability for larger training establishments. And lots of imagine the federal government ought to play varied roles to make sure that precept is upheld. Seventy-one % agree that the federal authorities ought to require transparency from establishments and accredit them based mostly on their worth to college students. The identical share imagine there must be federal guardrails to stop “dangerous actors” from charging college students for low-quality levels. And almost half agree taxpayer {dollars} must be withheld from schools that don’t supply a enough return on college students’ funding.
Towards that finish, 83 % of Republicans assist the monetary worth transparency rule, which requires schools to report program-level info like the entire value of attendance and the quantity of personal training loans disbursed to college students. To make faculty extra inexpensive, 81 % of Republicans are in favor of Pell Grants, federal monetary assist for low-income college students, and 79 % assist the Public Service Mortgage Forgiveness program and income-driven compensation for scholar loans. Virtually 70 % favor borrower protection to compensation, permitting college students who attended fraudulent establishments to have their scholar loans discharged.
The report notes that many of those similar insurance policies “are being thought of for cuts as price range reconciliation heats up.”
“As Congress considers the place to trim the price range this yr, it’s necessary to do not forget that Republican voters aren’t searching for larger training cuts however slightly a renewed emphasis on making it extra inexpensive and holding establishments to the road for delivering a return on funding,” the report concludes.
