I’m continuing my discussion on education in Election 08 because education is critical to the nation’s livelihood (and so is your vote. Register here!). While the media may not be saying much about education, some of the candidates have quite a bit of information on their Web sites.

So let’s focus on Iowa runner-up, Democratic candidate John Edwards for this week. His primary higher education initiative is the College for Everyone program. Edwards plans to emulate a successful education program from Greene Central High School in North Carolina on the national level. The initiative would pay for one year of college at a public institution (tuition, books, and fees) for more than 2 million students. But he’s not offering a blank check here. Edwards would require students to work part time; if this is work-study at a college or partnerships with business, his Web site doesn’t say. Students would also be required to take college preparatory classes in high school and stay out of trouble.

Additionally, Edwards intends to take on banking institutions by putting student loans directly into the hands of the Department of Education. The idea is to save money for his program by eliminating big Federal subsidies for banks. Edwards also hopes to simplify the loan application system for students this way.

Furthermore, Edwards intends to shorten the FAFSA by 2/3. (I can’t lie; I think that would be fantastic. I’m not sure if it’s feasible or practical, but good grief, that form is long.) Lastly, Edwards wants to hire more college counselors in high schools to help students navigate the process of applying to college.

That’s Edwards’ ideas in a nut-shell. It sounds like it’s got some possibilities, but a giant shift of millions (if not billions) of dollars of loans being put directly into the government’s hands sounds tricky. It also sounds like it’s going to honk off a lot of people in the financial industry.

In case you want to find out about more about the other candidates sooner, I’ve collected links for the frontrunners:

John Edwards

Rudy Giuliani

Mike Huckabee

Barack Obama

Fred Thompson

Ron Paul

Mitt Romney

Joe Biden

Bill Richardson

Hillary Clinton’s education ideas are mixed in with a section on supporting family and children, and I couldn’t find a section on education on John McCain’s site.

If a candidate that I didn’t list has an interesting stance on education, drop me a message. I’ll add it into my next blog post.

Next week’s candidate: Rudy Giuliani.