Dear Future President,

The average college student graduates with a tremendous debt of $37,172. According to “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap” at aauw.org, in 2015, women working full time earned 80 cents for each dollar earned by a man. These are two money issues that need to be addressed.

First, college debt is heavy. According to “A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Dept Statistics for 2016” at studentloanhero.com, there are 43.3 million Americans with debt coming from student loans. I don't think making college free and increasing income taxes would be the right plan. However, many countries have a lower cost of college tuition. According to “College Tuition Around the World” at nonprofitcollegesonline.com, some countries with more affordable college than the US are Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Norway, to name a few. Our country's colleges need to work on making college more affordable and helping student deal with student loan debt. I believe there are people in our country smart enough to figure out ways to lower the cost of tuition.

The second issue, women’s pay gap, is one I think should've been dealt with a long time ago. In most cases, I believe women work just as hard as men at their jobs. Usually, a woman would only earn 80 percent of a man’s pay in 2015. “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap” at aauw.org says Women will likely reach equal pay in 2059. If the rate continues to change as it has since 2001, more slowly, women will not reach equal pay until the year 2152. Some details affecting the wage gap include age, race, and state. One way to start making pay more equal is to decrease the difference in those categories. That's a long time to wait for the pay a man is receiving when he is doing the same job.

I hope you consider the points I've made in this letter. Student loan debt and the pay gap for women are two issues that will continue to matter. I care a lot about these two topics. They are problems that affect many people in America.

Sincerely,

Faith S.