What is Mccain and Obama’s plan for Education, regarding student loans etc?. Still CONFUSED on who to vote 4.?
Now, I’ve looked up info for various issues …
and they each have pros and cons.
I’m a moderate, and I’m still pondering on who I should vote for..
one of the important issues TO ME is my education, I’d like to know if anyone who insight on who stands where regarding college loans and stuff, thanks.
Please give sources etc.
Obama has promised affordable college education for all students. However, this is an impossible dream and an impossible promise in this current economy unless our democracy converts to socialism. I believe Bill Clinton promised affordable education too and those are the years when I was in college and racking up student loans. I agree that education is important. I’m still paying off my college loans & will be for years! I didn’t see any help in the 90’s from Clinton even though that was part of his campaign platform and I don’t expect that to change in this election either. Sorry to be the bearer of negative news. With all the negatives said, sorry for that, there are lots of government programs for parent loans, student loans, work study programs, grants for low income students and private scholarship programs. I believe all of those are still in place today. Your best “bet” on funding college is to visit the financial aid department of the college of your choice and find out what programs are currently in place. With that said, I seriously doubt you will see any significant change in these issues from EITHER candidate in the next 4 years. They said last night in their debate that they are focusing on energy, the economy, and entitlements (i.e. social security). There are SO MANY important factors in this election. Education is a big one, but if you are trying to decide who to vote for, I wouldn’t choose based solely on their education plans. Both McCain and Obama claim to have a great plan to provide college, but neither provide evidence of the ability to make significant changes. If you are a moderate, you won’t be happy with Obama as he is the most liberal candidate we have ever had running for President. Not trying to be negative or sway you……..just he is very liberal. If you look at his record and his platform (i.e. where he stands on issues line by line) that what you will find. He does make a lot of promises that people like to hear……..just not sure there is much substance to his promises because much of what he promises simply cannot be done. McCain is conservative right wing, but more centrist than his fellow Republicans. i.e. a lot of extremely conservative voters were not happy with him as a choice for Republican nominee. He claims to be more moderate than Obama. I believe that is true. So…….
Obama says: he says he will give every student a $4k/year refundable tax credit in exchange for 100 hours of community service. Frankly, I don’t see this ever passing Congress because it’s way too expensive when we have a huge deficit and just passed a trillion dollar rescue plan to avoid the Great Depression. Don’t count on this credit to pay for your college.
He also wants to streamline the financial aid process so parents just check a box on their tax return to automatically apply for student loans. If this can work, that would be great. The application process is a pain in the rear as I recall. However, the processing time for IRS is quite slow, so I’m not sure how they can speed up the process enough to get student loan apps processed well. You can find this on his brief higher education section of his website.
McCain’s website has more information about his education policy so I copied the link. Too much to summarize here:
http://www.johnmccain.com/informing/news/PressReleases/ed12978d-a54f-471e-aeed-65c65bcba6da.htm
He doesn’t make promises of tax credits (that he knows he can’t keep) but he does have a lot of info about simplifying the complicated financial aid process (definitely needed) and fixing the student lending process. If this coincides with the “fixes” they will have to do in the credit markets now, then this could be very beneficial for students. It’s just hard to predict how much the current economic crisis will affect candidates ability to help the higher education programs. I think McCain is running on “cleaning up bureaucracies” and I think that will be a focus for him as part of his plan to clean up the wall street/lending mess we have now. Hopefully that will include reforms for education.
Hope some of this helps you make your decision. Hope you make the right choice! Good luck with college!
