Higher Education and Lifelong Mobility: Public Options, Honest Outcomes, and Portable Learning

What is broken and why it matters

What we would change

1. 1

   Guarantee a debt-free public first credential. A federal-state compact covers tuition and required fees for two years of community college, technical education, or an equivalent first credential. Expanded Pell aid covers living costs for low-income learners.

2. 2

   Create learner-owned education accounts. People can combine Pell, employer, workforce, and state funds across approved programs without surrendering data control. Credentials and credits use open, verifiable standards chosen by the learner.

3. 3

   Make transfer the default. Public institutions must publish course-level equivalencies and accept credits when learning outcomes match. A denial requires a reason and appeal; repeated lost credit affects federal funding.

4. 4

   Publish the real bargain before enrollment. Every program reports net price, time to completion, completion and transfer rates, debt, earnings ranges, licensure passage, and verifiable job placement, with privacy-preserving disaggregation.

5. 5

   Make institutions share downside risk. Programs with persistently unaffordable debt or poor completion owe part of federal loan losses and must improve, reduce price, or lose loan access. A balanced scorecard keeps earnings in context with the broader value of education.

6. 6

   Protect borrowers automatically. Payments adjust to verified income, pause at low earnings, end after a fixed repayment horizon, discharge through bankruptcy on ordinary terms after a good- faith period, and cancel when a school closes or defrauds students.

7. 7

   Defend inquiry and viewpoint freedom. Public institutions protect academic freedom, lawful speech, viewpoint-neutral student rules, research integrity, and due process while enforcing genuine harassment, threat, and discrimination rules.

8. 8

   Build paid pathways. Scale apprenticeships, co-ops, public-service fellowships, and paid clinical placements with wage progression and credit that travels.