By Alexis Goldstein

In April, Senator Elizabeth Warren released a bold plan for free public college and debt cancellation. This transformational proposal takes direct aim at some of the deepest inequities in education in America, and it’s funded by her Ultra-Millionaire tax on wealth above 50 million. The plan includes a $50 billion minimum fund for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and minority-serving institutions, and will make public college tuition-free at both two- and four-year institutions.

Her plan also takes direct aim at the crippling $1.5 trillion debt burden that America’s student loan borrowers carry, proposing to free millions of people from the lasting limitations those debts are placing on lives and hopes. Perhaps no student loan borrowers have a harder time bearing this burden than those who attended for-profit colleges, who make less after graduating than they did before attending. Among the boldest and bravest part of Warren’s plan is imposing accountability on the for-profit education sector, an industry with a record of law breaking and abuse that is responsible for 34% of student loan defaults, despite only enrolling 9% of post-secondary students. Warren is proposing an all-out ban on for-profit colleges receiving federal student loan money.