Two reasons why you should consider shooting in RAW

First of all it's easier to adjust for exposure in case it was over or under exposed.

To correct for the exposure, it's a simple matter of moving the exposure scale over a bit.

Then you can also adjust for color balance.  You know those shots taken in the house with tungsten light that looks really orange?

Just a simple movement of the color balance slider to correct for off color.

This is what the Raw Adjustment box looks like in Elements.

The blue arrow adjusts color temperature and the red arrow adjust exposure.  The Elements version is limited as to what else it can do but it'll serve your purpose.  It'll automatically open when you try to open a RAW (CR2) file.  If you want to experiment, shoot some images and RAW and see how those are adjusted in Elements.