All of a sudden, education is a major campaign issue in the 1988 race.

Whereas in previous years, education took a back seat to domestic issues, voter concern about the nation's economic decline and skyrocketing tuitions have propelled it to the forefront of every candidate's agenda.

Education as a way to improve international economic competition is among many candidates' top themes.

"There are a whole lot of subsets of issues within the competitiveness issue," says Charles Saunders, vice president for governmental relations of the American Council on Education (ACE). Candidates stress education because study after study reveals that "education is one of the keys" to restoring American competitiveness, Saunders says.

"It's a subject matter of almost universal concern," says Mitchell Daniels, president of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. "There's genuine alarm about year after year of rotten performance."

Higher education officials say the debate over education traditionally helped Democrats because it centered around expanding educational opportunity for all students and on levels of federal financial assistance necessary to do so. However, rising college costs and recent sweeping attacks from such critics as Allan Bloom on the quality and content of college teaching have refocused the debate more along lines that Republicans prefer, on issues such as quality and "accountability."

On several major principles, the candidates are saying much the same thing. Each pledges to place education among his top domestic priorities as President. Each argues that investing in education is vital to improve the United States' international economic fortunes and to ensure that all students have access to a college education, regardless of their income.

At the same time, however, several demand explanations from colleges about the way they spend their spiraling tuitions and advocate various forms of savings plans to help parents cope with these rising costs.

Yet despite all of the candidates' self-proclaimed support for education, higher education officials are worried that their commitment will not extend much beyond this election, and are therefore urging candidates to describe their plans more specifically.

"We will be looking for more in-depth proposals for higher education, not just platitudes," says Saunders of ACE. Saunders says that it would be "disturbing if they [the candidates] were using it as a God and motherhood issue."

TGIF

With the hope of forcing candidates to make specific pledges, a commission of 31 higher education leaders, chaired by William C. Friday, President Emeritus of the University of North Carolina, released a comprehensive report in December on the state of higher education in America.

Entitled "A Memorandum to the 41st President of the United States," the report urges the next president to return the federal government to its former close partnership with higher education, provide incentives for research to help restore economic competitiveness, and increase federal grants for student financial aid.

The Friday Commission hopes "to lay out the kinds of issues we believe are the most important for higher education," says Saunders, the executive director for the commission.

"Simon and Dole have gone into some detail on their proposals," Saunders says. "Most of the rest have been speaking in general terms."