Elections are sometimes described as simply choosing between the lesser of two evils. That’s exactly what we had this year when it came time to decide which candidate the Central Michigan Life editorial board would support for Michigan’s highest office: Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Snyder or former Congressman Mark Schauer.

In a four-to-three decision, CM Life chooses to endorse Snyder. We hope that he can continue to deliver sound, pragmatic solutions to tough financial problems and steer Michigan on a path to prosperity.

The decision was not easy. Both candidates have many more cons than pros for our board, and the majority of college students. Both candidates did not present reasonable solutions to freeing us from student loan debt. Both have proven in debates, and in deeds to have no clear plans to increase higher education funding back to the levels they were in 2010, before Snyder took office and subsequently cut it by 20 percent.

In fact, the only thing that truly separated these candidates were their party-firm stances on social wedge issues like abortion, women’s health and LGBTQ rights. When looking at these issues closely, the average, left-of-center, college age student might see Schauer as a better bet to uphold the beliefs stereotypically associated with people our age.

Yet this election is about much more than what we as students on both sides of the aisle believe in; it’s about the health and affluence of a state. It’s about our parents, our grandparents, neighbors and those much younger than us. This election hinges on one question: Are you, or your parents, better off than you were four years ago?

Tasked with the question, the answer is surprisingly straightforward.

Although Snyder initially cut higher education funding at the beginning of his tenure in Lansing, he has steadily raised that amount closer to where it was before. For those at Central Michigan University who deal closely with Lansing, Snyder is the safer bet by a landslide.

Kathleen Wilbur, vice president of development and external affairs, said she doesn’t really know what could happen to higher-ed funding with Schauer as governor. Rightly so, as Schauer has remained mum on how and in what ways he would distribute money to Michigan colleges and universities. Even more alarming are the consequences of swift regime change in general. Wilbur told CM Life this month that with Snyder, they know what they’re getting.

Appropriations aside, the governor made the kinds of tough decisions to get Michigan on it’s financial feet again.

He has helped transform us into a state where small and large businesses alike see opportunity and fortune. Detroit and other destitute cities – a harsh word used even by our board members who proudly hail from the Motor City – are under much stricter fiscal supervision than they have been in years.

Out of any governor before him, Snyder has by far done the most to build a bridge of support from Lansing to Detroit.

Speaking of bridges, Snyder vehemently supported the creation of a new bridge to Canada in an effort to forge new revenue drivers, which effectively break up a long-held monopoly.

He courageously tried, yet failed after being blocked by his own party, to introduce a small gas tax that would directly fund renovations of derelict roads.

But don’t let our glowing endorsement fool you: There are quite a few bones we have left to pick with Snyder – bones we wish to see not buried out of sight in his second term.

With so many Broadcast and Film majors on our campus, we implore the governor to take one of our highlight programs into account by ending his plans to phase out Hollywood and independent film incentives by 2015.

We demand that Snyder focus more on helping to fix our broken public education system instead of blindly supporting schools of choice – a deeply conservative rallying point. With CMU’s potentially grim outlook on enrollment in 2020, Snyder must continue to focus on producing a higher quality public education in tandem with fostering charter schools. A university can live and die on the amount of its incoming freshman, and on this factor, Snyder has the ability to make or destroy our chances of survival.

Lastly, we hope that Snyder can step away from party politics and help shape a Michigan that is both more tolerant and accepting of non-traditional ways of life. We look to Snyder – and Attorney General Bill Schuette, if elected – to change his mind on marijuana decriminalization and gay marriage. If Snyder wants young people to stay in Michigan, allowing social change to take root freely is imperative.

We wish him luck in tough times, and we ask that his decisions remain laser-set on the betterment of the state, and not on what his party wants from him in return.