Socialist congressional candidate Claire Valdez (D) called for “student debt abolition” in a video interview, arguing the federal government should cancel student loans and return public higher education to a tuition-free model.
Valdez is the Democrat nominee in New York’s 7th Congressional District. She said she worked in higher education before entering politics and dealt directly with students carrying heavy debt.
“I had direct experience of working with students who were under crippling student debt,” Valdez said.
The democrat socialist said students were paying steep tuition while trying to afford life in New York City, calling the situation “profoundly unfair” before pushing for mass cancellation.
“We can fight for student debt … abolition cancellation,” Valdez said.
The Queens Assembly member insisted the country should return to an earlier era, pointing to a time when New York’s public colleges charged no tuition.
“It used to be free in the 70s. It’s not free anymore. Why can’t we go back to this time when public education and higher education were public goods,” Valdez said.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidate argued education is now “completely under attack,” blaming the current administration.
“The Trump administration is going after it on a number of different fronts,” she said, adding that “education should be the great equalizer.”
Valdez’s campaign platform calls for dismantling what it describes as the “tuition-and-loan business model” and redirecting federal grant funds to cover attendance costs without means-testing.
It is not the first time the candidate has framed a policy as a return to the past. Valdez has also pitched “universal rent control,” citing 1940s-era policy, and previously voiced support for “taxpayer-funded sex changes” and a “Trans Bill of Rights.”
The remarks come weeks after Valdez won her June Democrat primary with 55.9 percent of the vote, defeating Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso as part of a Mamdani-endorsed slate of socialist candidates.
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