Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said
on Thursday he would work with U.S. lawmakers if elected to tie federal
funding and tax breaks for colleges and universities to a "good faith"
commitment by them to lower tuition costs for students.
"If universities want
access to all of these federal tax breaks and tax dollars paid for by
you,"Trump told a rally in a Philadelphia suburb, "they have to make
good faith efforts to reduce the cost of college."
Trump did not offer specifics on how he would tie federal funding to changes in college tuition.
His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton,
has proposed making in-state tuition for colleges and universities free
immediately for families earning $85,000 or less, and free by 2021 for
families making up to $125,000 a year.
Trump, a
New York businessman, has not said much about the cost of college while
campaigning. But U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who competed against
Clinton for the Democratic nomination, made government-funded
college tuition central to his campaign platform.
Sanders drew a great deal of support from
the youngest group of American voters, and Trump, who needs to win over
more women and young people before the Nov. 8 election, took up a
similar theme in his proposal.
U.S. student debt
has surged about 24 percent to around $1.2 trillion since 2012,
according to figures earlier this year from the New York Federal
Reserve, leaving many graduates with mortgage-sized tabs before they
enter the workforce.
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