• Obama wants to eliminate FAFSA and simplify the aid process
• American Opportunity Tax Credit would give students $4,000 for school in exchange for 100 hours of community service
• Obama wants to increase the Pell Grants to help low-income students.

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office in January, all eyes are on his plans for higher education—an area of concern for one of his biggest groups of supporters.

On Election Day, Obama claimed the highest share of the youth vote of any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976, according to CIRCLE, a non-partisan organization that promotes research on the political engagement of Americans between ages 15 and 25.

CIRCLE found Obama was favored by 68 percent of the estimated 22 to 24 million youth that voted.

Here are some of the things you can expect from Obama's higher education plan:

Simplifying the Application for Aid

Obama has proposed to simplify the financial aid process by eliminating the Free Application for Federal Student Aid all together.

The current FAFSA process requires students to wait until they receive their Student Aid Report, a summary of FAFSA's responses, to see how much aid is being awarded.

Under Obama's new plan, families would simply check a box on their tax form allowing the use of the necessary tax information to determine and award financial aid. On his Web site, Obama claims under this new method students will be able to determine the amount of expected aid in advance.

Susan Fisher, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of Student Financial Services, said there would be many benefits of knowing the amount of aid in advance.

"Currently, the system uses income tax numbers for the current year, which aren't available until March or April," Fischer said. "Students can't apply for the following fall until those numbers are in. For some students that seems a bit late."

Fischer was concerned that simply checking a box might not be the fairest option.

"I get what (Obama) is trying to do," she said. "He wants to look at prior tax information to make the funds available sooner, but things change in that time and I'm not sure that is the best option."

College Tax Credit

The American Opportunity Tax Credit is the name for Obama's plan to help reduce tuition costs. This universal and fully refundable credit would pay for the first $4,000 of any college education.

The College Board, a not-for-profit association that helps students with educational needs, recently announced the average cost of public in-state tuition at a four-year college or university is $6,585. The $4,000 American Opportunity Tax Credit would cover two-thirds of the educational costs to attend these schools.

Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst at the College Board, said there are currently two tuition tax credits and a tuition tax deduction.

"These programs benefit middle and upper-middle income students primarily," Baum said. "Obama's proposal would increase the value of the credits and probably consolidate the three programs into one."

Students who wish to receive this credit would be required to complete 100 hours of community service, Baum said. She added that details of how the two will be tied together are still unclear.

Tax benefits, like the American Opportunity Tax Credit, operate separately from the financial aid system, which is on the expenditure side of the budget, so it would not have an impact on the amount of money a student could possibly receive, Baum said.

Helping Low-Income Students

Many low-income families rely heavily on Pell Grants for access to post-secondary education. These need-based grants currently have a maximum allowance of $4,731—a number Obama's plan would increase.

"Pell Grants are critical to college access for low and moderate income students," Baum said.

Baum added that the average grant awarded is $2,650.

"Pell Grants are always good," Fischer said. "They've been under-funded and I would love to see them get more money, and attention. It is going to cost a lot of money and (Congress) will run into issues on how to pay for them."

In an attempt to bolster the Pell Grants, Obama plans to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan Plan and mandate that all federal student loans be provided through the direct loan program. With the current FFELP plan, the federal government makes subsidy payments to banks and lending institutions to help with the loans.

Marquette, along with many other universities, is on a direct loan program, said Tim Olsen.

"One of the benefits of direct lending is that it enables us to work directly with the Department of Education rather than vendors from all 50 states," Olsen said.

In recent years, 90 percent of Marquette students have received help from the university or outside sources, Olsen said.

Fischer said one advantage of two lending systems is that it provides competition.

"If we only have direct lending and if there is no one to push against when you have an administration who decides it's not an important issue, then students are held hostage," she said.

Fisher added that Democrats have always been very pro-direct lending but she would be nervous about committing to one system entirely.