As of April 10, Senator Rick Santorum announced that he would drop from the presidential race.  Soon enough, Newt Gingrich declared news of a similar nature and the attention of the nation began to shift towards the November election.

With the primary focus of the nation now on the upcoming months where Mitt Romney and Barack Obama contest for the presidency, issues ranging from the war on terror to education have come to the forefront of political talk.  Since many students will have the opportunity to vote in this election a great deal of interest among students has been displayed in these issues.

“I’ve always been really interested in politics,” junior Laura Parker said.

For Parker and students like her, there are a few select issues that bear great importance.  Many of these issues reflect challenges that students will be facing in the upcoming years.  Problems such as cuts in education and healthcare are what students hope to solve by voting for the next president.

“For me, personally, immigration and education are what I look for in a candidate,” Parker said.  “I feel like cuts shouldn’t be made in education.”

In the end, though, and despite all the concern over the issues, whether or not anything changes will of course be contingent on the candidates and who ends up getting elected.  But in some student’s eyes the selection of candidates is less than ideal.

“It’s really hard to be satisfied with any particular candidate,” senior Dominic Shoopmann said.

Electing a president, while still important, won’t mean much if the controversial issues which will be fueling the debates during the election, remain unsolved in four years.  So coming out to the polls on election day may be the result of tradition more than attempting to cause change.

“I’ve been trained from a very young age that voting is good,” Shoopmann said.