With the US presidential election five months away, the candidates are making an effort to get their voices heard on topics such as health care, taxes, the economy and the ongoing war. But what about topics closer to a college grad’s bank account - student loans and the college tuition? Here is a breakdown of what is known about Barack Obama and John McCain’s stances on these issues so important to today’s students.

Faced with steep inflation of college tuition, many college aged people are looking to find out where the candidates stand on student aid and the rising cost of higher education. As over 17 million voting-age college students stand to be affected by the troubles in the student loan market, it has been harder for the candidates to avoid discussions on the costs of higher education.

From Bnet’s article on college costs in the candidate’s agendas:

This year, students are voicing concerns more loudly about their ability to afford a higher education as ever-rising college costs — up 22 percent in the last five years alone — have been thrown into especially stark relief amidst a media and public storm about the potential unavailability of student loans facing families in the upcoming academic year.

Traditionally Republicans like to cut public programs and funding in favor of projects deemed more important and McCain’s stance so far seems to be in line with that. To deal with the expanding federal deficit, McCain’s preferred solution is cutting government spending. This is good and bad since earmarks will decrease (under Bush the number has grown substantially). Read more…

From Yahoo! News: The Associated Press reported that last Saturday President Bush said the recent credit crisis is threatening the availability of student loans. His administration is doing what it can to help with emergency loans for new students for the upcoming fall semester but called to Congress for authority to do more.

Bush threw his support behind a House-passed bill that would grant the Education Department greater temporary authority to provide loans to students unable to secure ones from banks or other lenders. A similar measure by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is pending in the Senate. He has also told Congress to get the new legislation on his desk as soon as possible. With college students needing to secure loans for the fall semester, there is no time to waste.

Earlier this month the legislation passed the House in a 383 to 27 vote.

The House bill would raise limits on how much borrowers can receive under the federal program. It also tries to encourage parents to take out federal loans for their children’s education. The bill would allow parents to defer repayment of those loans until after their children leave school, which is currently not allowed.

The recent problem stems from dozens of lenders that have stopped making loans under the federal program that subsidizes and backs low-interest loans. Some students relying on private loans, which are not federally backed and can carry high interest rates, have had trouble getting those nonfederal loans due to those lenders. The lenders make up an estimated 13 percent of the student loan market. Read more…

This past Thursday was the fourth time in the past year that House of Representative lawmakers discussed the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, unveiled earlier this year by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. More than half of the 15 witnesses that testified before a panel of the House Financial Services committee endorsed the 9-point legislative plan. The issue has taken on more relevance as more and more Americans are facing rises in unemployment, inflation and have had to increase their reliance on their credit cards to make ends meet.

A statistic from the CNN article, Congress Tackles Credit Card Reform:

Based on the most recent data from the Federal Reserve, the average American family carries an average of $2,200 in credit card debt.

As fallout from the recent housing and credit crises hit the big companies, more everyday folks are now feeling the affects as the companies, in order to preserve their profits, are passing the whole of the costs onto the consumers. This is the point many credit card company critics have argued. Many credit card issuers have been charged with engaging in “unfair” practices such as raising interest rates on debt even when consumers pay on time or imposing excessive fees. Read more…