by Gary Masino

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, two leading presidential candidates from opposing parties, spoke out on last month at a conference in Dallas about higher education becoming financially out of reach for too many young Americans. This is the third time over the past year that Bush and Clinton appeared at the same public event, offering a possible glimpse of the 2016 presidential election race. Bush asserts that technology could help make college more affordable in the U.S and more accessible to foreign students. He believes expanding the market of students could in turn lower the cost for our own students. Although Clinton agreed, she argued that technology is no substitute for the kind of learning that occurs in a classroom full of peers. “Technology is a tool not a teacher” — Clinton argues. Technology cannot teach creativity and critical thinking she explained. She is calling on the U.S. to “Redefine higher education” to provide more opportunities for people to gain vocational and technical skills, and to “reorient our social expectations” to encourage more young people to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/24/hillary-clinton-jeb-bush-say-higher-education-is-out-of-reach-for-too-many/