IF IT is the case that the issues and potential policy outcomes motivate the American electorate when deciding who to cast a ballot for, then college students, including those at the University, should be analyzing the policy promises of presidential candidates for federal support for students in higher education.
According to the University, approximately 45 percent of all undergraduates receive financial aid. That's roughly 5,850 eligible undergraduate voters at the University alone who will be affected by the next president's policies on higher education.
With that in mind, it makes sense to take a look at both Sen. Kerry and President Bush's plans for higher education.
Sen. Kerry's plan is long on rhetoric, but short on details for his ambitious plans or how he will be able to enact them. The most specific of his proposals is a $4,000 College Opportunity Tax Credit, available to those who meet the ambiguous standard of "having trouble with the costs of college." Kerry makes no attempt to clarify exactly where the line of "trouble" is drawn.
The Kerry/Edwards ticket does propose an interesting (if not particularly well-described) national service program, in which youth who spend two years working in schools, health centers or in support of national security would go to college on the government's tab. This amounts to a G.I. Bill for national civil service and, while potentially costly, presents an ambitious new way of looking at education funding that lets the country benefit from young people's labor rather than their student loan interest payments.
This initiative is truly something that could revolutionize the way students pay for college. Further, some Republicans aren't diametrically opposed to the idea, with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., actually in support of such an expanded service program.
The rest of Kerry's higher education agenda, however, is meaningless focus-group-tested babble that is devoid of detail or figures.
According to his Web site, Kerry wants to simplify the FAFSA federal financial aid form, on the grounds that the form is more complicated than many small business loan applications. A good idea, but not as effective or stirring as adding more money to the programs which the FAFSA helps determine eligibility for.
He also promises on his site that "he will also help more young people negotiate the college application process." No explanation of this line exists on the Kerry site, or appears in the text of his publicly-available speeches. Perhaps the executive residence would add a new wing so that President Kerry could personally do SAT prep with youth in the District, or Vice President Edwards could help students hone their application essays and personal statements. Since when did any of this become the province of the federal government, or any level of government?
President Bush's plan, to be fair, isn't any evolution in higher education policy or vision either. It is devoid of any new grand principle like a national service initiative, and essentially consists of promises to ratchet up the funding levels of preexisting programs.
Yet, at the same time, the Bush plan is much more driven by real increases in funding for valuable preexisting programs than by platitudes about non-existent programs whose effectiveness is unknown.
Each one of the president's initiatives for higher education provided on his Web site are backed by numbers. A visit to the site produces a healthy list of figures: a $25.9 billion increase in financial aid over the 2001 figures; allowing for a $1,000 increase in the maximum Pell Grant amount students may be given; providing $125 million to promote high school/college dual enrollment programs in the states.
For a president who is often accused by his opponents on the left of not being concerned with details, Bush's plan for higher education shows remarkable amounts of it.
National security is clearly the organizing issue of this election cycle. But higher education support is still an important issue, and should be especially so for the readers of this publication.
In this area, voters will have a choice of a candidate who has vision to revolutionize how many students could pay for college but few hard facts, and a candidate who lacks such a vision but is chock full of facts. A shame they can't be combined into one man.
Jim Prosser's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jprosser@cavalierdaily.com.
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