When it comes to education policy, Hillary Clinton has her sights set on Wisconsin Governor and GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker.
During a campaign stop yesterday, Clinton accused Walker of wanting to "raise taxes on students" and "delighting in slashing education funding" after laying out her plan for education reform, which has been dubbed "The New College Compact."
Hillary Clinton has made her first direct dig into Scott Walker, the hardline conservative favourite for president who is now fading in Donald Trump’s shadow, as the Democratic frontrunner continued to condemn Republicans on the campaign trail.
The Wisconsin governor “seems to be delighting in slashing the investment in higher education in his state”, Clinton said during a town hall-style event in the early voting state of New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Clinton also accused the governor of “rejecting legislation” that would help Wisconsin students repay their loans.
“I don’t know why he wants to raise taxes on students, but that’s the result,” she told the crowd at River Valley Community College in Claremont.
Now, Walker is firing back by defending his record and attacking Clinton's new higher education plan, which will cost taxpayers $350 billion dollars in tax hikes.
"We've frozen tuition now four years in a row," Walker tells Townhall. "That's how you do things. You protect college students and their families from high cost of tuition."
"[Her plan] is done under the guise of helping students but in the end...is a way to put more money into the university system without addressing the very legitimate question about why is tuition going up so much? Why is the cost of a college education going up so much? And why is it becoming increasingly difficult to get a degree within a reasonable amount of time?" Walker continued. "Instead of addressing the real challenges, instead of making policies relevant to the real needs of students, pouring in more money has just driven up the cost and caused colleges and universities to be less and less relevant to what our students' needs are."
When asked if he believes Clinton's education plan is geared toward benefiting her liberal friends in academia, much like her other policies and record with the Clinton Foundation, Walker said "absolutely."
"For them, sadly more money from the federal government is really just an enticement for a lot of these colleges to up tuition, to charge more, to use that money historically to drive up costs. It's certainly good for a lot of their liberal friends in the university systems to spend more money but what we've seen overtime is that tuition is going up, in some cases three to four times the rate of inflation," he said.
Yesterday Walker tweeted the following in response to Clinton's attacks, reminding voters that while he's frozen tuition rates in Wisconsin over the past four years, Clinton has been charging public universities more than $225,000 to show up for a thirty minute speech.
.@HillaryClinton I’ve frozen in-state tuition rates for four years, while you charged colleges $225K+ just to show up. -SW
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) August 11, 2015Tuition is frozen at the University of Wisconsin, making higher education more affordable for WI students & families. pic.twitter.com/5dSGnM0THL
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) August 11, 2015"This is just typical of the left, pour more money into something without fixing the problem," Walker said. "She thinks if you're not pouring taxpayer money into things that that's the only way you solve problems. In the case of the federal government pouring more money into student loans without addressing the high cost of college in the first place only continues to exacerbate the problem," he said.