Dear Next President,

The college tuition should be free for all public (in-state) colleges because fewer people are able to get into college and get a degree since the cost is too high.

According to the Huffington Post, if the student cannot pay the college tuition, then they are most likely to take a government loan just to go to college but cannot pay the debt later on since the debt will build up overtime. According to U.S.News, the average tuition price from 1995 was about $2,500 but has jumped 296% to about $10,000. Some students are appalled by the high tuition, so they are discouraged about going to college and instead take jobs that only pays minimum wage to support themselves for the rest of their lives. Students have to work rigorously through high school to earn a scholarship for college but for students who are hard workers but don’t get a scholarship but can’t afford a single penny for college will have to get financial aid but most of the time, financial aid won’t cover the high cost of college tuition.

Most graduates who go to a public college or community college have a part-time to pay off their tuition but in some cases, that isn’t enough. Students not only have to worry about paying about $10,000 for college tuition but also paying hundreds of dollars for textbooks and if they don’t live in a dorm, then they have to pay for their rent, lunch and gas money if they have a car. The tuition system is unfair because if a student is not very smart but has rich parents, then the student will go to college anyway but if a student is really smart but has poor parents, then the student will have to rely on a part-time job, scholarships, financial aid or loans from the government just to get to college. If college tuition was free for every college, then there would be more more students which would lead to more graduates which would lead to more of a bigger work force since a lot of graduates will be looking for a job in their field.

Public colleges should have the same system that high schools do, enrolling is free and the school budget will be paid by the Department of Education. According to Trade Schools, smaller countries like Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, and Germany, all which have a lower GDPs than the U.S, have all provided free educations at their public and community colleges. According to the New York Times, schools that depend on federal aid to pay for supplies will have a hard time paying for those supplies because of state cuts on education. The New York Times says that one way to make college tuition-free is by using federal aid based on the number of students;the more students a college has, the more federal aid the college will receive to pay for those students’ tuition. According to Trade Schools, college tuition being free is possible if our government would close loopholes that companies use to avoid paying taxes, put a tax on Wall Street, tax the 1%, decrease the military budget, cut wasteful spending with tax payer money, and use the financial aid money given to students to help pay every student’s tuition.

According to Huffington Post, student debt has caused students to drop out of college which would mean that the money that was loan to the student was wasted or a graduate’s debt could lead to them being bankrupt. A statistic from Huffington Post is that 65% of a graduate’s debt is $25,000 per student, this price has lead to 40% of students getting a full-time job because they’re trying to pay off their debt before graduating. If college tuition became free, then students will only need to loan money for supplies like textbooks for a few hundred dollars,students will be able to payoff this debt and the government won’t have to put in a lot of money for loans. Some students get trapped into being in debt because of not being able to get a scholarship so they believe that their only option is to pay off college tuition with loans.

College tuition is at an all time high with the tuition average being at $10,000 while in 1995, the price was only about $2,500. Getting rid of college tuition would make more graduates meaning more workers for jobs to produce more income for the country. There are also other ways of getting rid college tuition like raising taxes on the 1% or other methods and using that new source of money on paying for student’s college tuition.

Sincerely,

Peter