Every year during the Undergraduate Student Government presidential elections, different issues arise, but tuition increases remain a constant student concern for candidates to address.

The four tickets this year are focusing on lobbying efforts to battle the ever-growing cost of higher education. Each candidate has different ideas about how to lobby at the administrative, state and national levels.

The four tickets running for the USG presidential and vice presidential positions are Latino Caucus President Carina Defferrire and former Penn State University Veterans Organization Vice President Pat Scanlan; USG Senate President Mike King and Lori Pennay (junior-speech communications); former Academic Assembly President Erich May and April Campbell (junior-Spanish); and Matt Thomas (senior-journalism and English) and Joy Brown (junior-accounting).

Helen Caffrey, director of commonwealth relations, said the most important thing for students to do when lobbying is to communicate with their own state legislators.

Lobbying must be "a collective representation of the Penn State family," including alumni, Caffrey said.

Scanlan said a "realistic approach" would be the way he and Defferrire would fight tuition increases. He said they would continue to lobby on the state level and fight to maintain the tuition challenge grant.

Gov. Robert P. Casey's tuition challenge grant gave the University about $200 for each in-state student last year, totaling $9.9 million. To receive the money, in-state tuition increases had to be kept at 4.5 percent.

Scanlan said he and Defferrire would lobby to push a Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency bill through the state House of Representatives. The bill would raise student loans from $2,500 to $3,000 and extend the loan from four to five years.

The USG Student Lobbying Network is running fine, Scanlan said, adding that he and Defferrire would continue to use it. They would communicate by "driving down to Harrisburg and knocking on doors."

Although King said he and Pennay would also keep the bulk of student lobbying at the state level, they would try to lead the Big Ten at the national level as well.

As a delegate to the Association of Big Ten Students, King said he has gained lobbying experience. The Big Ten has potential, he said, adding that he and Pennay would like to mobilize the conference and pressure Washington to increase higher education funding through the Jeffords Amendment.

The Jeffords Amendment would increase the federal allocation for education by 1 percent of the budget, amounting to $15 billion, King said.

King said he would do this by cooperating with the Big Ten, the United States Student Association, the National Coalition for Student Empowerment, Lead or Leave and the University.

Communicating with national lobbying organizations is beneficial to getting things done on the federal level, Caffrey said.

King said he would also re-establish the tuition workshop program, which ended during former USG President Rob Kampia's administration. The program gathered grass-roots information by surveying students, then presented that data to the University's Board of Trustees.

But May said the University is underfunded and "the blame belongs in the state government." The lobbying network must concentrate on lobbying at the state level before moving on to the national level, he said.

USG should also be careful not to lose too much time and energy in lobbying because the University has full-time people lobbying, May added.

"Everybody needs to admit, because of the tuition challenge, the University can't raise tuition beyond a certain point," he said.

USG also has to put the best students on the President's Planning and Budget Advisory Council, May said, adding that it is a good, solid resource for student input.

The council reviews academic and administrative strategic planning goals and requests for resources. It also makes recommendations on planning and budget priorities for the University.

To Thomas, having influence in the administration is important. USG must "work with them -- not against them," he said.

"A lot of the administration laughs at USG and think they have no power," Thomas said. "Experience doesn't count for anything."

Thomas said he plans to strengthen the lobbying network by recruiting students with majors pertaining to it. He said USG President Chris Saunders has started the ball rolling and gathered the facts and figures. Now it is time to put the information to use, he said, adding that he plans to lobby in Harrisburg and Washington.