September 21, 2016

Dear Future President,

Public colleges should have free tuition. Many students would like to have an education, but most are not able to afford it due to the hefty costs. Collegedata.com states that on average in 2015-16, a college student will pay $9,410 a year on tuition for a public school, and this is without textbooks and other educational necessities. In my opinion, it’s not worth it for these families to have to just about take out a second mortgage on their houses just so their child, or in some cases multiple children, can receive an education. Information from nces.ed.gov stated that 20.5 million students were predicted to have attended American colleges and universities in Fall of 2016. That means about 20.5 million families were spending that money to pay for the education and only a small portion of those families can actually afford it.

A solution for the financial issue just addressed, is for the government to make budget cuts on unnecessary expenses they are funding to, and by doing so, putting more money toward free college tuition. According to takelessons.com, the government would have to pay 62.6 billion dollars to pay for all free public college every year. Compared to other things the government pays for such as public elementary and secondary schools, which costs the government over 500 billion dollars per year, free college tuition could be placed into perspective. Maybe they can spend less on public (elementary and secondary) school luxuries, like 1:1 technology, and spend more on making college affordable or even free.

Overall, I believe that college tuition should be free for reasons such as what it can do to the students and their family’s financial status, and the money spent on luxuries for elementary and secondary schools should go into financial help for college students. My opinion is that this issue should be addressed more, or even better, a solution to this dispute could be brought to action. But the question is, are we willing to make it our duty to help support college students with their financial needs, which also includes making tuition free?

Sincerely,

Samantha Blake