Dear Future President,

A issue that concerns me is college debt. College debt is important to me because i will be going to college and so will my sister and brother and the only way me or my siblings will not be affected or won’t have a substantial amount of debt is if we get a scholarship. Another reason why college debt is important to me is because some kids in the world want to go to college and help support their family’s but college costs so much that it would just be putting themselves and the family in more debt. Why is it that to learn you have to pay outrageous amounts of money?

I think the symptoms of the problem is debt and loans. I understand there are some kids out there whose parents have allot of money and won’t have to worry about this but i come from a family of 5. When i go to college my sister is going to college next year and my brother will be following my sister in the following 2 years. Debt follows college because not everyone can pay for a 200$ book. Even when you are out of college and you are earning good money you still have to pay your student loans. By the time you finish you could be thousands of dollars in debt. Not to mention if you want to become a doctor that’s about 11 years of college. The amount of money in debt and the amount of time it will take is outrageous. Why does education cost so much? I understand that the money goes to bills, paying the teachers and other things the school needs to stay running, but i highly doubt that i should cost that much and you also have to account for the fact that there will is other kids besides you paying this tuition.

I believe that the root causes of college debt is that you’re paying for the name and funding cuts for college was cut down. Also the jump in amount of people who go to college. Have you ever noticed that Ivy leagues cost so much more than state. Some people say the reason why is because they offer a better education. But isn’t learning law the same in Montana as it is in New York? Another reason that college costs so much is the college funding was cut more than half. Shouldn’t college funding rose instead of being cut?

Over the course of decades college funding was cut. So year after year they had to raise tuition because the college funding kept on getting cut more and more. Some of the increased spending of education was because of the rise in people who attend college. “As the baby boomers reached college age, state appropriations to higher education skyrocketed, increasing more than fourfold in today’s dollars, from $11.1 billion in 1960 to $48.2 billion in 1975.”

I propose that we raise college funding. If our college funding was more than tuition would be less. College books cost so much, why don’t we just use e-books or download the books online. It would save the amount of back breaking books you have to carry and it would save some trees.

I believe that we should cut the cost for college because it’s education. I don’t believe that education should not cost that much. Everyone has to go to college if they want a good job with good paying money so why does it have to cost so much.

Sincerely,

Hannah J., 14

Billings, MT

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html?_r=0