Education is always a key issue for presidential candidates, but that is especially true in 2016 as a result of the fact that student debt has now eclipsed total credit card debt in the U.S.

Gary Johnson

Johnson calls for the complete elimination of the federal Department of Education and Common Core. Similar to Trump, Johnson’s plan calls for education to be handled by the state and local governments, not the federal government.

His libertarian plan would take a free-market approach to education. He said he believes a free market approach would create competition between state schools, better voucher programs for families living in poverty and drive the cost of education down.

Dr. Jill Stein

Stein’s platform concerning education takes a simple approach: “Education as a Right.” Stein’s plan calls for a complete “guarantee of tuition-free education from pre-school through university,” which is a system more closely resembling European school systems.

Her education plan partially stems from her “Green Jobs Initiation Plan” to raise the minimum wage and bring families out of poverty to provide a better environment.

Donald Trump

Trump’s plan for education focuses mainly on K-12 education, charter schools and abolishing Common Core.

Trump’s education plan calls for the federal government to raise its investment in school choice by $20 billion, starting immediately. His website cites “re-prioritizing existing federal dollars” as the means for applying his plan.

Hillary Clinton

Clinton has seemingly taken a page from Bernie Sanders’ platform and called for families making less than $125,000 a year to have access to in-state four-year public colleges and universities without paying tuition. According to Clinton’s website, this plan would be put in place by 2021, given her election.

Her website also states that her tuition-free plan will be put in place immediately for every student coming from a family making $85,000 a year or less.