More than a dozen members of the Black Student Union discussed President Barack Obama’s and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s positions on education, health care and the economy at the BSU Voting Party on Sunday, with two days before the early voting period for the presidential elections.
John Lewis, computer engineering junior and BSU’s parliamentarian, said Obama wants to prevent student loans from doubling to assist students paying their debts, establish a state-by-state education reform to allow states to educate students by their own standards and award schools with a high performance rate.
Romney plans to give every family access to a good education, focus on job training in schools in order to keep jobs in America and provide affordable access to higher education, said Kendale Thompson, political science senior and BSU vice president.
BSU cited each candidate’s information using the candidate’s websites, PolitiFact, FactCheck and information from the College Democrats at LSU.
Student loans and financial aid are some of the many issues that minority students are concerned with, Lewis said.
“Most students can’t afford college, or don’t have parents that can pay for their tuition, so they pretty much use financial aid to get through [college],” he said.
When a student told Thompson that Romney once said he wanted to give low income families more access to higher education, Thompson said Romney’s stance on financial aid contradicted his comment.
“I feel as if he [Romney] thinks you can just move somebody from low income and just say ‘Here’s an opportunity’ and bring them to higher education without the money, but we all know that’s not possible,” Thompson said.
Thompson worried Romney’s policies will have students pay for college on their own, and he said it’s difficult for students to do so today.
“There are ways to do it, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll get out of here in four years,” he said.
Students can only get financial aid when they are enrolled full time, and Thompson said working while attending college would prolong the time it takes the average student to graduate.
Lewis said he used financial aid to get a “full ride” his first year, but he is now working part time to pay for college and worries about increasing loans.
Kiara Johnson, kinesiology junior and the membership chair, said she plans to vote for Obama because of his stance on same-sex marriage and a woman’s right to choose.
“[Romney] wants to make it a federal standard that marriage is between a man and a woman … and I feel like you’re basically making it a federal amendment that gay people can’t get married, and I think that’s really messed up that you can discriminate against someone,” she said.
Thompson said Obama’s plan will help more people find opportunities to succeed, as well as assist students like him planning to receive a post-graduate education.
“It seems like his [Obama’s] plan is one that can help more people get opportunities to succeed, other than Mitt Romney’s plan — which his plan is that you have to be self-efficient — but the truth is everybody’s going to be self-efficient because we’ll all get the same opportunities,” he said.
Both Thompson and Lewis encouraged students to learn about candidate’s positions and vote for whoever supported their values.
“We need to stress the issues because you might be voting for Democrats, and you might have the same views as Republicans,” Thompson said.
