Dear Future President,

We as Americans are so fortunate to be living in such a free country full of opportunities; however, there are many issues that do need to be addressed for our country to remain successful. One of the most pressing issues is the enormous cost of college education. According to a study done by CNN, the average student debt is piling up year after year and was as high as $29,400 in 2013. It is extremely unfair for students to have to be punished for seeking a higher education, and these prices need to be looked at and amended immediately.

As a junior in high school I hear on a daily basis people saying, “I would love to go to this school but there is no way I could ever afford it”. What does a phrase like this do to a student's drive? Knowing they will never be able to afford a school even with scholarships will surely cause them to not work as hard as they would if they knew hard work was all they needed to go to their dream school. The high prices of college education are definitely a staunch reason for the decline in work ethic and passion for learning in high school, because the middle/lower class students know that for some reason in our society hard work is no longer what determines success and what determines failure.

Another issue is the fact that many students do not leave college with enough money to be able to support themselves and live on their own. Even if a student is able to afford going to college through loans and other support, when they leave college they have a huge burden of figuring out how to repay all of their debts, and most likely they will not even have a job right away. So basically, a student aspires to achieve greatness and expand their knowledge in order to better their future, and yet they come out with negative money in their bank accounts, and are somehow supposed to support themselves in all aspects of life.

A final issue with the cost of education is that in our society, enough education is never enough. Americans by nature want to succeed and climb their way to the top, exemplified by the numerous degrees citizens try to attain. A few years ago a Bachelor's degree was enough to be very successful and basically get whatever job one worked towards, but now a Master's and a PhD are pretty much expected. So what does this mean for today’s generation of college students? Due to the fact that most driven high school and college students cringe at the thought of being second-best, it means that students will continue to get more and more degrees, and therefore wrack up more and more debt. In the end, if a student spends most of their life educating themselves as much as possible, by the time they get a job there is no way they will be able to pay off all of their loans and support themselves with the price of education today. The issue here is not the fact that students are competitive and want to be the most qualified for their jobs, the issue is that by the time they are done with their education, they will not have enough money to make their dreams a reality.

In conclusion, it is very clear that the more educated we are as a population the better off we will be. With that being said, it makes no sense that only the financially fortunate will be able to achieve this education, because people will never be able to move up from the class status they were born into and improve society. It is imperative that as soon as you take office, Mr. or Mrs. President, that you do something to stop young adults from drowning in debt.

Sincerely,

Samantha Vesling