Q&A: Flaccavento talks issues pertinent to students in upcoming election

Tuesday, November, 6, 2012; 9:28 AM | 22 | | Print

by Donal Murphy, News Staff Writer

Anthony Flaccavento is the current Democratic House candidate for the 9th District. He has been the Director of SCALE, Inc., a consulting firm for local economies, and started various community programs in the District such as the Abingdon Farmer's Market. He decided to get into politics after realizing that much of his experience could be most influential at the national level in the current economic climate. The Collegiate Times sat down with him this weekend to get some answers that many college students are concerned with in this election.

Why are students in so much debt?

We've allowed higher education to be defunded progressively at the state level, which is also kind of a federal issue. Over time as the costs of higher education have risen, the proportion that's being helped with or subsidized by State government has been declining. The share left for students to pay has been growing... The reality is the cost has been rising, students are paying a bigger share of it because federal and state governments have cut back their share...

Schools have more facilities, have more equipment needs. A basic university now is far more endowed with material and equipment and technology than it was when I went to school in the 70's and 80's. So there's rising costs there.

It was a small victory that we managed to keep interest rates on Stafford loans from doubling this past spring and summer... So I would like to see the interest rate on student loans come down another point to about 2.5%.

What would you do to help make higher education more affordable?

I think we're at a crossroads where the other party believes almost exclusively in cutting education, not just at the higher education level... They want to substantially cut back Pell grants...

It used to be a Pell grant pretty much paid for a community college education, it paid for about 2/3 of the cost of a state school education. Now it pays for about 2/3 the cost of community college and about 1/3 the cost of going to a typical 4 year state school. I would invest more in Pell grants...

I think we invigorate work study and other sorts of programs that allow students, because an awful lot of students work, and if they can work and help write down the cost of tuition through work study, we ought to look at invigorating that as much as possible.

What do you think of the Affordable Care Act?

I definitely support the major elements of it, not every single bit of it, but I would fight efforts to repeal it. The provision that allows students to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26 is more critical now than ever, students are coming out with higher debt than any generation in history

There's also, and this is something I know students are thinking about, a significant amount of attention in the Affordable Care Act paid to wellness and health and preventative cares. A lot of young people are obviously healthy or are trying to get healthy.

Job prospects are one of the biggest concerns of college students. How would you help improve the job market as it stands today?

Much of my work the last 3 decades has been around this idea of building a bottom-up economy, building an economy that's based on small to mid-sized businesses, on innovative entrepreneurs and manufacturers, on green energy, on businesses in energy efficiency....

What we've seen is that in many parts of the 9th District and other parts of the country, this bottom-up approach, this kind of building-on-your-strengths approach is creating a wealth of new businesses, some of them are owned and operated by younger people. Whether a young person actually becomes an entrepreneur themselves or works for a business, often times they have not only good jobs but higher levels of satisfaction, because they're not just one of 10,000 people doing something, they're actually engaged in meaningful work in the community....

What the government can do is help you make your way by

investing in you, cutting down the cost of your debt, and then investing in these businesses and these entrepreneurs that can create these job opportunities that you can fill...

It's a disheartening time in many respects for young people, but I also think that we're on the cusp of this new economy that needs young people. It's coming as much from young people as it's not, and we need to embrace that and let you forge the next economy, because we sort of had our chance and we blew it in a lot of respects and I'm all for you all taking over.

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A version of this article appeared in the Oct 2 issue of the Collegiate Times.

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