Dear Next President,

Congrats on winning the 2016 elections. It must have took a lot of work, dedication and time to achieve your stature now, but you got here and beat out your other competition. Although now is a time for celebrating, you also have to take control of your country and deal with big issues like the one I will bring up today. The topic I would like to bring up is college debt. We have too much debt from college and is continually building up.

In today’s standards, it is a “norm” to go to college, get a degree, and form your life into the life that you want and live relatively happily. But college is not starting your people off in a good place. According to the Institute for College Access & Success, student debt after college that sticks around for 10-15 years after college is over. People have just spent multiple years of stress, hard work and sacrifice to get their degree in a certain subject, but the stress isn’t over when they finish college and have thousands of dollars of debt to pay, also with other payments with houses, necessities and even families.

My idea is this: stop taxation on student loans and have students pay what they needed. The students at your colleges pay a plethora of money to only get the materials they need to get there way through college. That could alone build up to a large sum of money for the middle class, but the fee it requires to get into school and learn. Most people require loans or other forms of money received through an outside source, that money they expect back not only starts with what the person who needed gets but it builds up even more to a greater sum of money that the consumer must pay. They must stop this taxation so the students know what they are paying and make a better plan to get that money back to the source they got that money from. America has built up more than 1.4 trillion dollars in debt according to the Market Watch. We must get rid of the debt and find a way to make money instead of lose it. To make the money back that America already lost, a small tax should be put on items that are not necessary to a “normal” life to start to build up the money that the taxation of the student loans so only positive income can come from this plan. The tax will be very low almost nothing of extra taxes. All the people in America must buy something at some time, and multiple things. The money would only be positive from this plan.

The debt that is caused by college can delay or even stop a person's ability to “grow up”. People have so much debt that they can’t start families, buy houses or make their life into what they want. And I personally have two parents that are or recently was in college, so my family has gone through the struggles of college and still are today. Some people never end up paying their debts and pass it on to the next generation and still never gets paid. These are problems, very big problems that must be solved and you are the one to answer the problems with solutions.

There are many problems in America today and these must be answered with a good and reliable responses. I hope that this is not passed over and has some thought put into it rather than thrown to the side and never looked at again. Thank you for looking at this note to the next president. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Ethan Odell, 10th Grade

Mendota Heights, Minnesota