One of the most important issues to college students is that of higher education. Though neither presidential candidate has made higher education a priority of their campaign, it is still important to consider their positions.

Both candidates want to simplify the financial aid application process. While the advantages to government sponsored financial aid are certainly debatable, anyone who has applied for federal aid can tell you that that the process needs to be simpler. Along the same lines, Sen. McCain also plans to simplify higher education tax benefits.

In addition, McCain will attempt to improve research funding for universities by eliminating earmarks. Earmarks are small unrelated projects that are attached to bills, which contribute to billions of dollars of wasteful spending per year. Since a large portion of earmarks are attached to research budgets, their elimination — something McCain has been very adamant about during his campaign — will lead to an increased research budget for these universities.

Sen. Obama on the other hand, plans to create the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which will make the first $4,000 of college education free for most Americans. The problem with this is the same problem that exists whenever you subsidize something. By decreasing the amount of peoples’ own money that must be spent to pay for a college education, you give colleges the incentive to raise their tuition rates. There is a certain financial burden that people are willing to bear for a college education, and a subsidy will not change that burden, thus allowing colleges to raise their rates to offset most of the subsidy.

In addition, that $4,000 per student has to come from somewhere — your taxes. So even though the aid you get will not do much to offset the — now raised — tuition rates, you will still get to pay for it through your taxes for the rest of your life.

Obama also plans to increase the max Pell Grant amount and eliminate the private loan program, again favoring direct, taxpayer funded government loans and aid to the more efficient and taxpayer friendly private version.

McCain’s plans for higher education are far superior to Obama’s simply because they are not as counter-productive. Obama’s plan follows the same pattern as the rest of his campaign: Promise a little bit of someone else’s money to every group of people in America in order to get votes.

— Blake Hasenmiller is a senior in industrial engineering and economics from DeWitt