USA
Kamala Harris has not distinguished herself in the higher education field as vice president. But she has previously advocated for eliminating tuition fees in parts of the education sector and for disadvantaged groups.
On Sunday evening, it became clear that Joe Biden (81) is withdrawing his candidacy as the Democratic presidential candidate. In a letter, published among other places on X, Biden writes that it is best for the party and the nation that he does not seek re-election in the presidential election in November.
The decision to withdraw the candidacy comes after three weeks of criticism and internal unrest in the Democratic Party following what many considered a disastrous debate against Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Now, with less than a month left until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, everyone is wondering who will take up the fight against Trump.
Many, including Biden, are now pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris (59) as his successor.
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First Woman?
If Harris were to be elected as the 47th president of the United States, she would be written into history books for several reasons. She would be the first woman to hold the office, the first of Indian and Jamaican descent, and the first president to have her education from a so-called HBCU.
The acronym stands for “Historically black colleges and universities,” and refers to institutions of higher education established for black students at a time when they had no access to other institutions.
Harris has called her years at the prestigious Howard University in Washington D.C. a formative phase of her life. After four years as a political science and economics student at the beginning of the 1980s, her journey continued to the University of California and what would become her professional career, law.
This is also where her involvement with higher education ends. When she ran for president in 2020, her campaign platform contained little about higher education.
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More Prestige Projects
Harris is considered to be to the left of Biden in her politics, and she supported Bernie Sanders’ plan for free higher education in 2017.
She also utilized parts of this plan in her campaign and ran with a promise of free community college education for all and free four-year university education for all students from households with a total annual income under $125,000, about 1,150,000 NOK at the 2020 exchange rate.
As vice president, she has not made a mark in the higher education field, but she is likely to continue working on some of the major prestige projects that she and Biden have been working on during their three and a half years in the White House. Many of these have faced opposition in Congress and the judicial system.
Among these is the “Student Debt Relief Plan,” the ambitious plan that Biden and his administration have initiated to address the staggering student debt Americans have.
So far, five million Americans have had $168.5 billion in debt erased, but Biden has met opposition, including in the Supreme Court, which in 2023 put its foot down and determined that the president did not have the authority to forgive student debt.
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Pros and Cons
Another of the promises Biden and Harris ran on was to double the number of “Pell Grants,” a scholarship for students with extraordinary financial challenges related to their education. They have not been able to fulfill this promise, but the number of awarded grants has increased by 16 percent during their years in power, according to Inside Higher Education.
Biden and Harris have also received positive mentions for increased budget transfers to HBCU institutions, like the one Harris herself attended. In total, these universities have received $16 billion more in the last four years.
Another prestige project for Biden and Harris has been an update of the “Free Application for Federal Student Aid,” a service that allows financially vulnerable students to apply for support. The project has been plagued by technical challenges, and many students facing financial challenges have not received the help they were supposed to get.
Neither have the plans to make local colleges free passed through Congress. But the budget proposals have made it possible to get other measures at the state level underway, according to David Baime from the American Association of Community Colleges.
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