Romney on Tuition & Aid

What, what, what?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he would like to link college financial aid to the jobs students pursue after graduation.

He offered no specifics on what careers would warrant more money for a student during their undergraduate years, such as whether a future lawyer, doctor, teacher or social worker would receive more aid than a future economist or engineer.

"I like the idea of linking the level of support that we're able to provide to young people going to college to the contributions they're going to make to our society," Romney told more than 200 people at an event at a Davenport hotel, one of three stops in the state Wednesday.

Here's the problem: the kinds of occupations that are typically in short supply -- doctors and engineers specifically -- need extremely expensive educations. Some schools, like UW-Madison, are even raising the tuition for students who opt for these careers to offset costs. So how is this going to work? Are English majors going to now pay more to compensate for the pre-med set?