As a graduate student at Syracuse University, Terri Neal will choose her presidential candidate with a keen eye to a big issue: the high cost of college.
“I’m concerned that the price of tuition keeps jumping every year by six to eight percent,” said Neal, a new media student. “I want some type of policy that will help to defray those extra costs for students.”
Neal is among many students and other voters worried about the cost of education. A 2006 survey by the non-profit Project on Student Debt reported that 64 percent of adults believe the government is doing little to make higher education available and affordable. More than 77 percent of recent college graduates in the study proposed a cap on loan repayments at 10 percent of their income. For many college graduates, the diploma comes with a big debt: more than 6 million graduates will come away with an average of $20,000 in loans, according to a 2007 trends report by the College Board.
All of that has taught the presidential candidates to develop proposals on educational costs. Here are some highlights from the leading candidates for the Feb. 5 primary in New York and 23 other states:
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-ILL): He wants to create a tax credit on the first $4,000 of college tuition. The credit would cover two-thirds of the cost of tuition at public universities. He would make attending community college tuition-free. He also calls for simplifying the application process for financial aid. For example, he would allow families to simply check a box on their tax returns authorizing the use of their tax information for applying for aid.
“In a global economy where countries who out-educate us will out-compete us tomorrow, we must make a college education available and affordable for every American, and that means doing more to invest in programs that work and expanding them to more students,” Obama said in a speech in September 2007.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY): She calls for a slightly smaller tuition tax credit worth $3,500. She has called it “the heart” of her educational policy. Clinton also proposes to increase the federal Pell Grant from by “I believe that college shouldn’t just be a privilege for the wealthy — but an opportunity for anyone with the talent, determination and ambition to learn. And I believe that every American should have access to lifelong learning opportunities — from apprenticeships, to community college, to the most select four-year institutions,” Clinton said in a speech in October 2007.
Among the Republican candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain emphasize K-12 education. Among their proposals:
Mitt Romney: He supports the federal No Child Left Behind Act that requires students to pass standardized tests for schools to receive funding. Romney also calls for a tax credit for those parents who home-school their children. He promotes the fields of math and science by proposing to add more math and science teachers, advanced placement courses in those subjects and by providing laptops to students. He favors giving parents the option to send their students to charter school. In higher education, Romney has proposed more scholarships for high-achieving students.
“We’ve got to raise the bar, folks, or the future is not going to be as bright as the past,” Romney said in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club in February 2007.
John McCain: He supports tax credits for families to help them afford a college education, as well as reduced student interest rates on loans. He hasn’t outlined a specific plan on how to defray college costs. But in the New Hampshire primary campaign, he said that an education should be “affordable and available.” College should not be mandatory and should not be provided by the government, he said.
For K-12 schools, McCain argues that the No Child Left Behind Act needs to be fixed, but that it is a good start in holding teachers and school accountable for student performance. He also supports charter schools and vouchers that would allow students to chose which schools to attend.
“I believe America’s attention has gotten beyond education, and unless we improve it dramatically, we’ll fall behind other countries,” McCain said in a townhall meeting in New Hampshire during the state’s primary.
For SU graduate student Neal, she doesn’t care how each of the candidates decides to make education affordable. She just wants it done.
“There are other countries where people don’t have to pay to go to college,” Neal said. “We need to figure out how to make that happen here.”
(Koren Temple is a graduate student in magazine-newspaper-online journalism.)
-30-
