Dear Next President,

My whole life I’ve been wondering what college I was going to go to and how I was going to pay for it. Now that I am a senior in high school, I still don’t know how I’m going to pay for college because of the steep price of college and I just wanted to explain this problem that I have as well as others.

Society assumes that when a student graduates high school, they’re supposed to attend college to build their career. But due to high college cost, students in the lower-class or have moderate grades do not attend college or either drop out very early in college. So an issue to take inconsideration is reducing the college cost.

What if I couldn't go to the college of my choice because of the cost?

Two years ago, my older brother wanted to attend a prestigious college that was priced at sixty thousand a year. He had the best grades, top twenty in his class, and an excellent student overall. But due to the lack of scholarship and financial aid, he could not attend his favorite college. But then I thought to myself, “He’s probably not the only one with the same problem.”

So I found out that over the past 35 years, college tuition at universities has nearly quadrupled, to $9,139 in 2014. This causes families to stretch the amount of money they have to pay college tuition. This then pushes millions of families every year into a lot of debt. This is terrifying to believe or think about. Although the colleges might object that the increase of the price is to take families money, I maintain that the high prices for college is to fund for their unreasonable spending.

Colleges spend too much and want others to help fund. But “it’s not like colleges are spending more money to educate students,” (Campos, The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much). Institutions are facing funding cuts and there is a large increase of Americans going to college. Since 1995, the enrollment of professional, undergraduate, and graduate programs has increased by 50% which is amazing. Also state funding cannot support all colleges, “so they have to get that money from some place to replace their lost state funding” The states do not have enough money to fund every college and colleges are losing a great source of money from the state. This would then mean that colleges would have to increase their tuitions and fees.

So college cost matters Mrs. President because many pursue college but cannot afford it. So what are you going to President, sit back and watch people do nothing with their lives or speak out about it?

Sincerely,

Austin N.