Dear Next President: 

Huffingtonpost.com states that United States citizens owe altogether about 1.32 trillion dollars in student loans. When people's ability to learn is stunted by the fact that they can't afford it, something has to change. Some students have been born into wealthy families and don't understand how hard affording education is. They do not value education the same way. With fewer jobs around, it is hard to find and work a job as well as keeping your grades up in college. College expenses don't end with the purchase of books and classes. The point is college is just too expensive and we need to find a way to make college more affordable.

College is overpriced and the reasons why are ridiculous. Professors that teach the mandatory classes have the highest prices, making just the basic classes expensive. Collegedata.com shows college out of state is more than double the college instate tuition. The price is so high that most students can't even go to four year schools right after high school; they are forced to work and attend community college. Also, instead of allowing some students to pick cheaper housing, they make it mandatory that first year students live in expensive dorms.

Many geniuses have been born into poverty and who knows how many have not had a chance to show their skills and help the world with their minds. One of the greatest scientists we have ever had, Newton, was born into poverty, and if he had never gotten the chance at an education where would we be? Or even Shakespeare- he was expert writer and that was from his education and natural born gifts for creativity. If Shakespeare had never been able to write grammatically correct, this world and its writers would be very different. Grit: the adjectives for this word are backbone, perseverance, determination and tenacity. This is what kids with few resources in this world use to get what they want and what they feel they deserve such as good grades or acceptances into colleges they want. Some people don't need grit; they are simply born with resources and the ability to go to school where they please. They are simply not used to the idea of perseverance or difficulty and how is someone lacking those traits going to be able to change or help America?

Some of the things to make it easier for people with grit to go to school include more resources and a few money sacrifices on the school's part. A way to help students is grant money we don't have to pay back. Grants should be awarded to working students, students with single parents, or students with large families. The schools could make parking less expensive or not make it mandatory for students to sleep in dorms the first year of college. Colleges could also realize that a kid coming from a different state shouldn't have to pay an extreme amount of money on out of state fees.

College prices are too high. It's just impossible to make it through college without years of crippling student loans. They charge you extreme prices for frivolous things such as parking permits and mandatory living in dorms. These prices are putting caps on someone's educational ability and it's very unfair . There are many easy fixes to this, but it does take sacrifice from people that it will hardly affect for the better good. So my final statement is that college prices are too high and an educated country is a better country, so I demand you make college a more reasonable goal for everyone.

Sincerely C.Combs