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opposition to abortion while urging women to keep pocketbook issues uppermost in their minds when they vote.
• On the celebrity front, Obama picked up the endorsement of rock star Bruce Springsteen, who also backed the Democrat in 2008. In a letter on his website, Springsteen called the president's term a "really rough ride." But he said that "though grit, determination and focus, the president has been able to do a great many things that many of us deeply support."
• Springsteen planned to appear at two events for Obama on Thursday, including a rally in Ohio with former President Bill Clinton.
• Romney traveled on Wednesday with comedian Dennis Miller, and singer Lee Greenwood warmed up his crowd in southeast Virginia.
• The political dinner in New York is named for the former four-term Democratic governor of New York who lost the 1928 presidential race Republican Herbert Hoover. Smith was the first Catholic to run for president.
• While the Catholic Church has differences with Obama on abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage, the Conference of Catholic Bishops also has clashed with Republicans, opposing GOP budget plans that cut programs for the poor and criticizing efforts to deny illegal immigrants tax refunds from the $1,000-per-child tax credit.
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Average debt up again for new college grads
JUSTIN POPE,AP Education Writer
• It's the latest snapshot of the growing burden of student debt and it's another discouraging one: Two-thirds of the national college class of 2011 finished school with loan debt, and those who borrowed walked off the graduation stage owing on average $26,600 -- up about 5 percent from the class before.
• The latest figures are calculated in a report out Thursday by the California-based Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) and likely underestimate the problem in some ways because they don't include most graduates of for-profit colleges, who typically borrow more than their counterparts elsewhere.
• Still, while 2011 college graduates faced an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent in 2011, even those with debt remained generally better off than those without a degree. The report emphasized research showing that the economic returns on college degrees remain, in general, strong. It noted the unemployment rate for those with only a high school credential last year was 19.1 percent.
• "In these tough times, a college degree is still your best bet for getting a job and (Continued on page 26)
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