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The primary and maybe solely presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump didn’t embody any dialogue of the continued struggles of American college students to get well from pandemic disruptions. It didn’t embody any dialogue of the best way to make American colleges safer. It didn’t embody any dialog about the best way to management the price of school or guarantee college students are ready for well-paying jobs.
The greater than 90-minute debate hosted by ABC Information noticed Harris repeatedly press Trump on abortion rights, his relationships with dictators, and his authoritarian tendencies. Trump injected anti-immigrant rhetoric in response to questions on quite a few different matters, repeating false claims that newcomers to the nation are consuming family pets.
However Trump didn’t convey up his promise to get rid of the U.S. Division of Schooling or repeat his false declare made just lately to the conservative guardian group Mothers for Liberty that colleges are performing gender surgical procedures on youngsters. Harris didn’t talk about her guarantees to defend LGBTQ college students or make school extra reasonably priced.
One of many few mentions of a coverage that may have an effect on youngsters got here within the opening minutes of the talk, when a moderator requested Harris about whether or not the financial system is doing higher now than 4 years in the past. Harris didn’t straight reply the query. However in response, she drew consideration to her proposal to develop the kid tax credit score and increase it to $6,000 for teenagers age 1 and below.
Harris beforehand proposed reinstating a pandemic-era coverage that reached many extra low-income households and boosted the credit score from $2,000 to as a lot as $3,600 per baby, relying on their age.
Associated: A much bigger baby tax credit score may assist college students quite a bit. Will Harris or Trump make it occur?
In 2021, these funds helped reduce baby poverty almost in half, and diminished baby starvation and housing instability — all of which may have destructive results on children’ education. Trump didn’t point out the coverage, although his marketing campaign has stated he would take into account elevating the credit score for households of all revenue ranges.
“We all know that younger households want help to lift their youngsters,” Harris stated. A much bigger credit score would guarantee “younger households can afford to purchase a crib, purchase a automobile seat, purchase garments for his or her youngsters.”
Trump drew consideration to the Biden administration’s troubled scholar mortgage forgiveness efforts in response to a query about abortion rights. Harris has touted enhancements to the public service mortgage forgiveness program in speeches to academics and pledged to do extra.
Trump introduced up the problem after being requested if he would veto a nationwide abortion ban. Trump stated he wouldn’t need to, apparently as a result of Congress can be too divided, then pivoted to say Harris can be unable to move federal abortion protections, simply as a few of President Joe Biden’s mortgage forgiveness plans have been blocked within the courts.
“She will be able to’t get the vote,” he stated. “She received’t even come near it. So it’s simply speak. You realize what it jogs my memory of? Once they stated they’re going to get scholar loans terminated, and it ended up being a complete disaster, the coed loans. After which her, I feel in all probability her boss, if you happen to name him a boss, he spends all this time on the seaside.
“However look, her boss went out and stated, ‘We’ll do it once more. We’ll do it a unique method.’ He went out and bought rejected once more by the Supreme Court docket. So all these college students bought taunted with this complete factor about this complete thought and the way unfair that may have been.”
Kalyn Belsha is a senior nationwide training reporter based mostly in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s nationwide editor based mostly in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
