Though, both Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and incumbent Barack Obama acknowledge the rising cost of college tuition as a major problem, the level of urgency is different. Both acknowledge that a college degree is critical to getting a good job in the 21st century and that the shortage of graduates with key degrees - such as engineering - makes the United States less competitive in an increasingly technological world.
Though Governor Romney has been highly critical of President Obama's plan to solve this problem, his solution is to cut federal student loans and to let family finances decide where and whether each family's children go to college.
In a number of speeches he's given since clinching the Republican nomination, he's given very clear signs that his message to college students is that paying their tuition is their own problem.
At a campaign event in Virginia on June 29th, Romney said that students should get "as much education as they can afford." Also, at a town hall meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, he advised students to "find one (a college) that has the right price - shop around." When talking about giving government money to college students for tuition, Romney said "...I'm not going to promise that."
Obama plan, on the other hand, is to try to take federal aid from colleges that don't control the cost of their tuition and give that aid to colleges that find ways to lower their prices.
Clearly, both candidates have very different approaches to the problem, but whoever is elected, something must be done. In 2001-02, the average cost to attend college was $11,380. Eight years later, in 2009-10, the cost had increased by almost 55% to over $17,000. This kind of increase is leaving today's college graduates with huge debts just at the time when they're starting out in life on their own.
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