Dear Future President,

To start, I would like to congratulate you on being elected as the new President of the United States. After a tough, lengthy campaign, your hard work has paid off and you are finally the President. Since you are now the President, I would like to concern you with an issue that is close to me, the cost of college tuition.

According to U.S. News, from the year 1995 to 2015, the cost of college tuition for an out of state public university has risen 226 percent. Even more, the cost of in-state tuition at a public university has risen 296 percent! Because of this, it is becoming harder and harder for middle class parents to pay for their child’s tuition, especially if they have multiple children. Something needs to be done about the rising cost of college tuition. If the cost of tuition keeps rising at this pace then less and less students will be able to afford to attend college, which will either force them to take out more loans or prevent them from attending a college at all. If this ends up being the case, America will have fewer qualified workers to choose from to place in important roles in various businesses.

One solution to the problem of rising tuition costs is to create more government funded scholarships to assist students and their families with the cost of college tuition. These scholarships do not need to be strictly based on academic performance either. A possible example of a new scholarship could be if a student was involved in a sport, club, or other activity on their school campus for the entire four years of high school. This type of scholarship can serve to help the students in multiple ways. By this I mean, making it a requirement to be involved in a part of the school gives the student a chance to discover things that they enjoy, and don’t enjoy, which makes them better prepared for life after high school. On top of getting them more ready for their adult life, the scholarship also makes going to college more affordable for the student’s family.

Another answer could be to increase the amount of money given in already existing scholarships. As of now, the highest academic scholarship attainable in the state of Arizona is $12,000 for one of the state schools. While this may seem like a lot of money to some, when using it to spend on college it quickly vanishes. Virtually all of the scholarship money is gone once you pay for tuition, but if you are living on the college’s campus, like most students do, you are still forced to pay thousands more. This cannot be the case. By increasing the amount of money given to high achieving high school students, it gives them an incentive to work hard because they know it will make it easier to pay for their college.

The reason that this issue is so close to me is that I am the youngest of three boys in my house, my two older brothers are currently in college, and I know how expensive school can be. Trying to put three kids through college is expensive which is why I work hard in high school in order to be eligible for big scholarships. Unfortunately, even after the scholarships, I will still be forced to pay thousands of dollars more. Future President, something desperately needs to be done about the rising cost of college tuition and it needs to be done fast!

Sincerely:

Alec, Period 1