Since we're all college students and are used to receiving grades on the substance of what we do, it seems appropriate that we take time to assign grades to the men who wish to occupy the White House for the next four years.

Let's see how the major candidates stack up when looking at what they can do for the college-age demographic.

For sake of argument, I will be judging George W. Bush and John F. Kerry, who is the Democratic frontrunner at this point. People can argue endlessly about the war in Iraq or the Patriot Act, but that's not what I'm going to do. Instead, the primary things that matter to college students are the federal budget deficit, employment picture and college affordability.

Because Americans are most familiar with his record, it would make sense to start with Bush, followed by Kerry's plans.

This is shaping up to be Bush's worst legacy to our generation. No, Mr. Cheney, deficits do matter. The federal deficit -- $521 billion this year -- measures the difference in tax revenues and government spending. If students think about it like their credit card, there is only a certain period of time that they can keep on borrowing money before the day of reckoning arrives.

While the current deficits run are rather annoying, the truly infuriating and shameless act of irresponsibility is Bush's plan to make his tax cuts permanent. Rather than offering a better explanation than "we should let Americans keep more of their own money," it is pure recklessness to plan to decrease tax revenues at the same time that our parents -- the Baby Boomers -- will start retiring and placing greater monetary demands on our already strained economic outlook.

Meanwhile, Kerry plans to shrink the deficit by raising taxes on the wealthy. Kerry enjoys a good track record from his experience as a senator fighting deficits. But, his pledges to "reign in out of control spending" sound exactly the same as every other politician. Call me cynical, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Employment

Though Bush has presided over a net loss of jobs, he does have the right idea that the jobs we should strive hardest to keep are higher-paying, idea-driven positions. As I said last week, we have to realize that to maintain our living standards, Americans must compete on ideas and innovation rather than cost.

Kerry is somewhat misguided in his platform. While he does wish to reduce unemployment, Kerry is aiming in the wrong place. Rather than attempting to focus on high-paying service sector jobs, Kerry is running around trying to close gaps in NAFTA and other free trade pacts to appease his constituency of unionized blue-collar workers. Protecting our companies from competition may indeed save jobs in the short run, but it will harm America's long-term economic prospects, as we will not have as much competition to drive our innovation.

College affordability

The issue I take with most of Bush and Kerry's proposals, as with plans for other policies, is that we really don't know what will end up being passed by Congress if the particular candidate is elected. It is still useful, though, to consider the candidates' proposals.

The problem with Bush's higher education policy is that he doesn't seem to have one. Looking at his "Official Re-election [Web] site," one can select the category "Education." In this section, interested parties can see the "Leave No Child Behind" goals. This is all well and good that Bush is attempting to address some of the issues we are having with our primary and secondary schooling. However, there is absolutely no mention of colleges and universities. Doing a search for "college" in the "Education" section yields five results, none of which are relevant.

Is this the grand vision he has for the future of America?

In comparison, Kerry correctly points out that much of the impact of the federal tax cuts passed by Bush have been offset by corresponding tax increases by our states. As some have noticed, many of these states were forced to reduce their appropriations toward public universities -- Penn State, for example -- to deal with their budget crunches. To alleviate this issue, Kerry wants to send $50 billion to the states "to stop the education cuts and tuition increases across the country." Kerry is currently proposing that the first $1,000 of college tuition be counted as a tax credit, and that the next $3,000 receive a 50 percent deduction from students' tax bills.

Grades

On the combined issues of federal deficit and jobs, Bush gets a C- and Kerry receives a C. On college education, Bush gets an "incomplete," while Kerry receives a B-.

Of course, my thoughts on these candidates' positions when it comes to the overall issues are different. But, the most important thing to take away is that it is indeed very rare for any presidential candidate to specifically propose what he intends to do.

Again, style and personality appear more important than actual substance.