As Iowa State Cyclones, our average student debt at graduation has increased — in lockstep with tuition cost — for the last decade. Next year’s tuition and fees estimate, from the ISU Web site, is estimated to be $29,500 for undergraduates, guaranteeing that the $27,500-plus average debt that almost 70 percent of students graduated with last year will rise.

As such, we students will most likely continue to maintain our dominant second-place position atop the national public university debt list. While we current students will graduate with debt, regardless of the next president’s identity, the issue of higher education should still matter to all of us; we know the burden, many of us will eventually have children, and most importantly, we will live in a nation in which roughly 55 percent of high school graduates go to college.

While we may feel for the 45 percent of college-age Americans who can not attend college and experience the fun and meet the friends, they are missing out on much more. What they are missing out on is the education that hopefully prepares us for hopefully high-paying jobs.

While we quickly consider this a good thing from a ‘more jobs for us’ standpoint, it really is not, because more college-educated Americans means a wealthier — and less out-sourced — American economy. But given the rise in tuition and debt throughout the United States, accessible higher education — and its benefits — seems a distant dream.

As Barack Obama stated in Bettendorf nearly a year ago, when our economy wasn’t tanking, “Americans are working harder for less and paying more for college. For most folks, one income isn’t enough to raise a family and send your kids to college.”

Obama’s policy on higher education will bring this dream into reality.

Through his universal and refundable American Opportunity Tax Credit, any high school graduate will have their first $4,000 of tuition covered.

The one catch to all of this aid? Recipients will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service. Sounds pretty bad, huh? But is it really that bad to learn the values of civic responsibility, altruism and empathy while building a great resume? I sure don’t think so.

But since I can’t hop into the Delorean with Michael J. Fox and reap the rewards of Obama’s plan, I am doing the next best thing: Voting for Obama so that my (eventual) children — and my national economy — will.

— Steve Adams is a graduate student in political science from Annapolis, Md.