Hillary Clinton said Tuesday night that she wasn’t sure why her Democratic presidential opponent Bernie Sanders was reaching more young voters, right before pivoting into a personal conversation with a young law school student about college debt.
At a CNN town hall in South Carolina, a young woman who said she was supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked Clinton point-blank why she thought there was a generational divide between those young Democrats who supported her and those who supported Sanders.
“Well, I’m not sure, to be honest. I really don’t know,” Clinton replied. “I want you to know that whether you end up supporting me or not, I will support you. And I will support the young people of this country because that has been—that has been my life’s work.”
The young woman, who was in law school and said her mother was a Clinton supporter, said that one of her greatest concerns was student debt. Clinton then got personal as she pivoted to talking about her college debt plan.
“I borrowed money when I was in law school also,” Clinton said. “And I know that is can be a burden and so here’s what I want to do. I want you to be able to refinance your debt at much lower interest rates. It makes no sense at all that you’re paying—do you know what your interest rate is? “
The young woman, who said she was just halfway through paying off $75,000 in debt, and Clinton then engaged in a dialogue about her debt.
“You know, I want everybody to understand this,” Clinton said. “She borrowed money for the principal and to be able to pay her fees to go to law school and I would bet a good percentage of what you now owe is because of the interest.”
Clinton went on to say that students in debt like her questioner should be able to move into a contingency repayment program and recalled paying back her own student loans while working for “not much money at all” at a children’s defense fund.
