By: Ariel Zirulnick, Assistant State and National Editor

Posted: 2/27/08

The youth vote has the potential to play a pivotal role in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and in response the party's candidates are promising reforms to areas such as higher education.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been trumpeting their plans for increasing college affordability in an attempt to attract young voters.

Their plans have distinct similarities: Both would expand Federal Pell Grants, simplify the financial aid process, create a tax credit to help cover tuition costs and eliminate subsidies for private loan companies.

"Most of the proposals on the surface are pretty similar," said Rebecca Thompson, legislative director of the U.S. Student Association.

"The proposals that both the candidates are making aren't essentially brand-new ideas," she added, explaining that Congress has recently passed or is deliberating on a wide range of higher education legislation.

Both Obama and Clinton have suggested eliminating the traditional Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which students, parents, educators and administrators have often described as excessively complicated and onerous.

"That's definitely one of the biggest challenges," Thompson said, citing complaints on everything from remembering PIN numbers to the length of the application, which tops 100 questions.

"Measuring someone's ability to pay for college is not simple," said Steve Brooks, executive director of the N.C. State Education Assistance Authority, which helps manage college loans for N.C. students.

"It's difficult to come up with a simple plan that is also fair. It's that trade-off between simplicity and fairness," Brooks said.

The UNC system recently created a commission to simplify the financial aid process through steps such as having the Internal Revenue Service contribute its data so that students and parents wouldn't have to answer the same tax questions twice.

"That would make it simpler on the family and make it more fair when making a calculation," Brooks said.

But he said relying on the IRS for much of the data could cause extenuating circumstances, such as unemployment, to be forgotten if precautions aren't taken.

And relying on the IRS could necessitate that less recent tax information be used, making it less reflective of a student's actual needs, he said.

Obama and Clinton have both proposed eliminating the FAFSA form entirely. Instead they would add a space on annual tax forms where filers can authorize the use of their information to determine financial aid eligibility.

Both candidates also plan to make financial aid award amounts available earlier so that parents and students have more time to consider their financial options.

Legislation with similar ideas has been on the floor in Congress. The College Opportunity and Affordability Act, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 7, has a provision for streamlining the FAFSA form.

It calls for reducing the number of questions on the form, allowing applicants to only enter information that needs updating and working with the IRS to fill out some sections of the FAFSA form automatically.

The bill is currently up for debate in the U.S. Senate.

"With the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act up in the air in Congress, we're already on a path to making a lot of the changes that they're both talking about," Thompson said.

"The reality is that it's going to be Congress that's going to pass the legislation."