Dear Future President,

In this letter I want to address the situation with free community college. “On average thirty percent of college and university students drop out after their first year of college, because of the high cost and the stressful environment”(college dropout statistics). If we cut out the high prices of community college it would cut down on the stress of financial aid and the percentage of dropouts. Some states have already adopted free community college.

Making community college free has become a hot idea.“Over the last two weeks politicians in Tennessee, Oregon and Mississippi have proposed a tuition-free first two years of community college for their states’ high school graduates” (Is Free Better? By Paul Fain). The program for tennessee is called The Tennessee Promise, in order to qualify you have to complete eight hours of community service, attend two meetings with a mentor before each semester, as well as maintain a 2.0 GPA. It is not that hard to qualify which is why so many students are going to college that might not have gone before.

If it's the cost for the government paying for the tuition, or whether it might hurt the economy in the long run, it actually is not that expensive and worth the outcome. “The average cost per student is $1,165 a year, which means the state will spend about $12 million on the program this year” (NCSL).

In conclusion I hope you will consider passing a bill for all the states to require a program for free community college for all the states, or some sort of program to help with students that might not go to college because of the cost. Not only would it be beneficial for the educational purposes but it would be good for other small colleges as well.

Sincerely,

Sailor