Back to the Future with McCain and Keyes

And my gratitude goes to Greg Toppo for linking to our item about Mitt Romney so I don't have to. ...

In addition to paging through the former governor's report, we also dug through our archives to find a Q&A on higher education we conducted with the presidential candidates of 2000, two of whom are back at it again for 2008.

In that 2000 exchange, John McCain advocated establishing tax-deferred family savings accounts that could be used for higher-education expenses and said he would encourage colleges that have put in place admissions policies that help economically disadvantaged students.

He also emphasized the importance of preparing students for college as he pitched school vouchers and teacher-competency standards.

And then there is Alan Keyes. In 2000, the one-time president of Alabama A&M University told us that the U.S. Department of Education should be abolished and the federal government should prohibit preferential treatment of people by race in higher education. He also argued that direct federal grants to institutions are “dangerous,” often involving “expensive and ideological regulations.”

You can look here for more coverage of higher education and the 2008 candidates, including a link to a study that shows that text messaging may be an effective approach to getting out the youth vote and a Q&A with a political science professor in Florida about that state's primary debacle.