Rahm Emanuel, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and the former mayor of Chicago, rolled out a plan for higher education on Tuesday that calls for accelerating the trend to optional three-year college degrees.
Speaking at Dartmouth College, Emanuel unveiled the framework of what he called a “grand bargain” between the federal government, universities and families. He said that the plan would transform higher education into a “benefit” rather than “a massive burden” and diminish the hostilities that have emerged during the Trump administration between the government and the academic institutions.
“We need a ceasefire as it relates to higher education,” Emanuel said.
The bargain would require colleges to offer free tuition to families with incomes below $200,000, limit tuition increases to the cost of inflation for everyone else and offer a three-year bachelor’s degree to any student who earns 20% of their required college credits while in high school.
In exchange, colleges would save 10% on the administrative costs required to comply with federal government requirements. They would also be able to enroll international students at a higher percentage of the student body than the Trump administration has proposed — up to 20% as opposed to 15%.
“Foreign students would subsidize American students: They pay full price, and the American families get a break on the price,” Emanuel said.
Some schools, including Dartmouth, offer financial aid to international students. Across higher education institutions, however, international students tend to pay full tuition at higher rates than their domestic peers.
Emanuel said he chose to share his plan at Dartmouth following a conversation with the college’s president, Sian Leah Beilock, at a conference on education in San Diego earlier this year.
“To her great credit, she said, ‘I disagree with a lot of what you want, but I want you to talk about it here at Dartmouth’,” Emanuel said.
In an interview with the Concord Monitor following the event, Emanuel clarified that Beilock wasn’t totally opposed to the plan and offered feedback, particularly on the concept of a three-year degree. A Dartmouth spokesperson was not immediately able to answer a question about Beilock’s perspective on the plan.
The talk was sponsored through a pair of initiatives called Dartmouth Dialogues and the Law and Democracy series. Dartmouth Dialogues emphasizes the importance of civil discourse across ideological differences.
In addition to receiving an invitation from Beilock, Emanuel may have been drawn to Dartmouth because he is considering a run for president. In an interview with the New York Times ahead of the release of his higher education plan, the former mayor said that anyone who runs for president should prioritize education reform in their campaign.
Emanuel said his plan would offer certainty to higher education institutions, the federal government and families during a period of upheaval within the field. While Emanuel said he recognized that a new presidential administration could ultimately wipe out any changes made, he believed his plan would create a new system that would be politically inexpedient to reverse.
“I am making a bet that when 80% of Americans are being offered tuition-free, or only three years of college, that has a stickiness to it in politics that even Donald Trump can’t upend,” he said in an interview.
For the plan to work, colleges would somehow need to offset the losses that come from offering free tuition to anyone making below $200,000 and offering three-year degrees.
Emanuel said that loss in revenue would be made up for by increasing international student enrollment and decreasing compliance-related costs. Under the plan, institutions that opt in would be able to request relief from the government on certain requirements totalling up to 10% of the total money they spend on compliance.
If it is adopted, the plan could accelerate the trend of three-year college degree programs. Last fall, Plymouth State University and Rivier University launched three-year options in certain disciplines.
Students at elite colleges like Dartmouth would be unlikely to be the target clientele for a three-year degree. They did, however, have questions about the limit on international students. At Dartmouth, financial aid is awarded to international students through the same need-blind policy that applies to domestic students.
Asked by one student about whether the plan would “squeeze socio-economic diversity out of the foreign students” who do apply, Emanuel focused on the fact that many foreign students pay full tuition.
“The full rate allows you to offer the discounts to the American families,” he said. “That, to me, would be the trade.”
