Dear Ms. / Mr. President,

College Debt. College Debt is a huge epidemic that plagues millions of students in America. This topic makes me angry at times. Unlike America, most European countries have cheap or free college education. This makes me think, why do Europeans have a better college price point? After I looked into it and watched a documentary, called “Who to Invade Next” by Michael Moore, which was about the benefits of living in various European countries, I learned European countries have expensive taxes. But I thought, why don’t they protest to lower their taxes? The reason why is that there are so many benefits for paying that much money in taxes. For example, if you went to a hospital in London and received treatment, there wouldn’t be a bill for you to pay. Another major benefit is that their taxes pay for day care services. To me, the most beneficial part of paying high taxes is that college education prices are kept very cheap and affordable. This leads into my next point.

Right now there are about 43 million students who have student loans, and they each owe about $30,100. The average number of years it takes for students to pay off their bachelor’s degree is usually about 20 years. This means that so many students are going to start off their young lives with diminished credit. When you have bad credit, you’ll have higher interest rates, then you’ll start to pay more for your loans. That’ll make your life a whole lot harder. Also having bad credit makes it harder for you to get a car or when you settle down, it would make it harder for you to get a home as well. So when you inherit college debt, you’re inheriting a big burden.

Do you know that the price of college tuition can cause people to do really ridiculous things to pay for their tuition? For example, Belle Knox became a pornstar because her family wasn’t able to pay for college; it was too much of a financial strain. Another example is, a pastor in Colorado allegedly stole $392,000 from his church to pay for his son’s tuition. As you can see the weight of paying for college tuition and student loans becomes very strenuous, causing some people to do things that they normally wouldn’t do.

What do you think you can do about this Mr./Mrs. President? Well I think I found a solution that will be effective when implemented by you. Instead of increasing taxes like the Europeans, all we have to do is shift the percentage of the money spent on military defense to higher education and student loans. I know many may frown upon this, so just hear me out. Currently we’re spending 53.71% of our tax dollars on our military, which doesn’t even include the pay for our soldiers. Instead we should be helping our soldiers by ensuring that they and/or their children can go to college worry free, without accumulating loads of debt. Not only will this benefit our soldiers, but all Americans. I also feel in order for this to work, you’ll need to show transparency on our paychecks. This will inform us where our tax dollars are being spent and what percentage of all tax dollars are being spent on college tuition and student loans.

The fact is college debt impacts the lives of most Americans. However, I know there is a solution.So help me help you, make America great again.

Sincerely

Jordan

Works Cited- https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/craziest-ways-to-pay-tuit_n_811038.html?slideshow=true#gallery/16243/

Documentary/ Michael Moore- Where to Invade Next

https://www.thebalance.com/side-effects-of-bad-credit-960383

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/397654/belle-knoxious-kevin-d-williamson

https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/