John McCain has emphasized the use of community colleges and other institutions to prepare more residents for jobs that require high-level skills. He is also continuing his longstanding quest to eliminate Congressional spending on noncompetitively awarded research funds through earmarks requested by individual legislators—a process that he and other opponents of the practice believe undermines the American scientific enterprise.
In August the presumed Republican nominee for president announced a broad higher-education plan that includes six general goals.
His policy proposes to “modernize our universities so that they retain their status as producers of the most skilled work force in the world,” in part by removing regulatory barriers that he says prevent institutions from moving forward with new ideas and by encouraging the government to support “innovative approaches to education.”
He also seeks to provide parents with better information about colleges by making the data that institutions report to the federal government available to families in a “clear and concise manner” and to simplify the process for applying for and administering federal financial aid by consolidating government programs. The plan does not single out which parts of the student-aid programs are unacceptably complex or specify how they should be simplified.
Senator McCain also said he would ease the turmoil in the student-loan markets by expanding the capability of the “lender of last resort” system, in which the federal government makes sure students can find loans if a loan emergency is declared, and by demanding “the highest standard of integrity” for private lenders that participate in the federal system.
Finally, he reiterated his desire to eliminate “earmarks” in federal spending, saying that they are “destroying the integrity of federally funded research.”
On stem-cell research, Senator McCain said he supported federal financing of programs that use amniotic fluid and adult stem cells and “other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos.” As a senator, Mr. McCain has voted in favor of allowing research on human embryos left over from fertility treatments.
However, the platform Republicans adopted at their national party convention differs with Senator McCain on that issue. The policy document advocates a total ban on research using embryonic stem cells.
In another difference with Senator McCain, the platform opposes efforts to provide education benefits to some illegal immigrants, a break he has strongly supported.
Senator McCain has played a prominent role in federal immigration debates over the past year. He helped craft compromise legislation in Congress last summer to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. The compromise included a measure, known as the Dream Act, that would have set out a path to legal residency for some illegal immigrants who had been enrolled for at least two years in college, and made them eligible for federal student-loan and work-study programs.
The bill died in the Senate, and Senator McCain began to shift his rhetoric about the bill when he hit the campaign trail. He now talks about how the nation should improve border security before turning to issues like federal education benefits for some illegal immigrants.
Meanwhile, other parts of the Republican platform adopted at the convention decry the “leftist dogmatism that dominates” many colleges and single out for praise colleges that spend more of their endowment funds on student aid, a cause championed by some Congressional Republicans.
The platform calls for a presidential commission to examine the “tuition spiral.” And it acknowledges the key role that higher education must play in maintaining the United States’ innovative edge in an increasingly competitive global economy.
Unlike the policy statement approved by Democrats at their convention, the Republican platform says little about expanding student aid, even as it decries the increase in college costs. Instead, it notes Republicans’ past advocacy of measures to provide tax incentives for families to save for college and expresses support for private lenders in the student-loan marketplace.
During the campaign, Senator McCain spoke in favor of limiting affirmative action. He said he supported a measure that opponents of affirmative action are trying to place on the Arizona ballot this fall. The measure, which might not have enough petition signatures to appear on the ballot, would bar public colleges and other state agencies from using racial and ethnic preferences. The senator’s position appeared to be a reversal from a stance he took a decade ago, when he called such measures divisive.
For more information about Senator McCain and his higher-education background, see our profile of him. And for more information about the Republican party’s platform, check out our coverage from the convention.
