Dear Future President,

Congratulations on winning the election! I know that in the next four years you have a lot you plan to accomplish and want to change in America, but one thing I want to bring to your attention is the amount of student loan debt incurred during college. Although this may not be life threatening, we must remember that my generation is the future of America. By bettering the lives, education, and financial stability of this generation you are also giving our country a fighting chance to become a greater nation than we already are.

At the end of college most students have an average of $30,000 in debt that will have to be paid off during a good portion of their life. Middle class families and poor families, no matter how smart the child, cannot afford to go to Ivy League schools or more prominent universities because of the cost. The debt incurred by a student in college increases every year. It plays a big part in their life and affects many decisions students or former students make regarding their future.

Over the last two decades about half of the bachelor degree recipients’ debt has tripled. In 1993-94 their debt averaged a little more than $10,000. Now in 2016 their average debt is about $31,000. The increase in loan debt has been caused by the government’s inability to keep up with the rapidly increasing college costs, says Mark Kantrowitz, a nationally-recognized expert on student financial aid, scholarships and student loans. Over the past 20 years, tuition and fees at National Universities, both private and public, have risen sharply. From 1995 to 2015 the average tuition and fees at private National Universities jumped 179 percent, out-of-state tuition and fees at public universities rose 226 percent since 1995 and in-state tuition and fees at public National Universities grew the most, increasing a staggering 296 percent.

This shifted much of the burden of paying for college from the federal and state governments to families. The government no longer carries its fair share of college costs, even though it gets a big increase in income tax revenue from college graduates. Since family income has been unvarying since 2000, students must either borrow more in loans or enroll in lower-cost colleges. That shift in enrollment, from private colleges to public colleges and from four-year colleges to two-year colleges, has also been responsible for a decline in bachelor’s degree attainment among low- and moderate-income students.

Debt has a lasting impact on students’ lives. According to Kantrowitz “Students who graduate with excessive debt are about 10% more likely to say that it caused delays in major life events, such a buying a home, getting married, or having children. They are also about 20% more likely to say that their debt influenced their employment plans, causing them to take a job outside their field, to work more than they desired, or to work more than one job”. When looking into professions and colleges, students also look into the cost and how much debt they would be left with in order to make their decisions.

I believe that one way to fix this issue and lower tuition cost would be for colleges to put their endowments towards students’ tuition, so the cost of college will lower. Ivy League colleges and more prominent universities have billions stored in the bank. Why not put some of that into lowering tuition costs so students have less debt when they graduate and so even the less affluent can attend? Student debt could also be lessened if the government did not charge interest on any student loans, not just those of the poor or low-income families.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter! Please take what I have said into consideration. We, the students and children of America, are the future, why lessen the chances of us being great. Good luck!

Sincerely,

Rosie Gindoff