Dear Future President,

   Students in our country cannot go to college. It’s not because they are dumb or they don’t want to because they’re “too cool”. It’s due to the fact that most of them are financially unable. Some of the students excel in their academics and are successful in a certain career but they end up not going. Education prices should decrease because students have to take out loans for tuition, pay for other fees, and often choose “lesser schools” because of exorbitant prices.

   Students often have to take out loans to pay for their tuition. In “Rising College Costs”, it states, “The amount owed in student loans in the U.S. is second only to the amount owed in home mortgages.” This shows that due to the increase in cost, student loan debt will continue to increase. Students will have to work while learning or pay it off throughout their lives. Therefore, the students end up spending more time paying off their debt. Even to this day, there are people who graduated years ago but they are still paying off their debt.

   Another issue is students have to pay other fees separately. They pay for meal plans, textbooks, dorms, and a lot more. Sometimes, the student doesn’t want or need a certain fee, such as a meal plan, but the school requires them to pay which is irrational. In “Is College Still Worth It? Students Weigh In”, it says, “Not only are we students paying higher tuition costs, but we still have to worry about the expenses that go along with living away from home…” The students are concerned about the extremely pricey cost. Even textbook costs have tripled! They should not have to worry about the cost; they should worry about their grades and their road to success.

   Those who are academically eligible sometimes have to go to lower ranked schools. They can’t afford the insane prices. Most students have a set goal, such as a certain career, but end up not being able to follow through with their plan. A friend of mine had a GPA of 4.3 and got accepted to many superior colleges, like Duke. However due to financial issues and the hefty amount of money that she needed to pay, she ended up going to a local, lower ranked community college for a much cheaper and affordable price. She gave up her dream college and I believe that is very unjust. People shouldn’t have to pay overpriced costs just to take classes for their future and their goals.

   Education should not be valued with money and prices should be set to an amount that is affordable. It is not fair that students have to pay large amounts of money that they can barely afford or they can’t go at all. Therefore as the future President, I believe that you should help decrease the cost of college prices to get more educated students and people in our country. You should be concerned about the lack of college level educated citizens for the future of America.

Sincerely,

Minji K.