With the Iowa caucuses less than two months away, it’s no surprise we’ve seen a number of presidential candidates here on campus trying to earn the support of students. Today, Marco Rubio will attempt to convince us that he is the candidate of a “New American Century.”

Iowa students may be cramming for finals, but you only need to read the cliff notes on Sen. Rubio to see that there’s frankly very little about him that’s new. He may be a younger candidate, but his ideas are all stale, old, and would move Hawkeye students backwards.

Let me start with an issue that affects pretty much every student here at the University of Iowa — student-loan debt. Here at Iowa, students graduate with an average of nearly $29,000 in student loan debt — and that’s not including the interest payments. That’s a difficult task to tackle, and too often the student-debt burden makes it harder for graduates to pursue their dreams.

There are great ideas out there to address this problem — some have proposed allowing students to refinance our loans once we graduate, much like you can refinance a loan for a car or a house.

But Rubio would actually make it harder for students to pay back their loans. He voted against a bill that prevented our student-loan interest rates from doubling. He also opposed the bill that would have allowed us to refinance our loans. His only solution has been to have us students pitch ourselves to investors, who could then make a percentage of our future earnings.

Paying for college is not the only thing Rubio would make more difficult for young people. He’d also restrict the freedoms of young women to make their own reproductive health decisions.

These were battles I know my mother thought I wouldn’t have to fight. But Rubio wants to take women back — so far back that he would take away our right to choose even in the case of rape or incest. He wants to completely defund Planned Parenthood, including the facility right here in Iowa City that provides family planning services such as birth control and STD testing.

And finally, I cannot think of something more from the “old American century” than Rubio’s view toward LGBT rights.  Here at Iowa, we celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality this summer.  Rubio, on the other hand, said he disagreed with the decision and that he remains committed to changing the law and once again putting up barriers to gay and lesbian couples who just want to be able to marry.

I don’t think Iowa students want a president who is committed to preventing loving couples from getting married. I don’t think we want a president committed to reducing access to health care for women. I don’t think we want a president who would make it harder to afford to go to college.

We want a president who actually has new ideas, not one who just puts them in a slogan.

Lauren Freeman is the president of the University of Iowa Democrats.