To the future President of the United States,

College educations are necessities but are priced so high that they could be considered a privilege. Everyone deserves to have a college education but not everyone can afford to pay for one. Some people don’t go to college because they can’t afford it. In order to go to college, some people need a full scholarship. However, some people need partial help when it comes to paying for college such as financial aid or student loans. Even though these payment methods are ways to allow more people to go to college, these are temporary solutions, not permanent solutions because the financial aid or student loans will eventually need to be repaid. People that can’t afford to pay back their loans have to deal with debt collectors, wage garnishing, and trashed credit standings which makes their lives even harder. To make college more affordable for people of all class backgrounds, there should be a nationwide system where college graduates pay a reasonable percentage of their yearly earnings to pay off their college debt.

This may not seem important to some people because they have already graduated from college and have a successful career and life and they might believe that this wouldn't affect them.  In reality, it actually is important because the cost of college has prevented many people from going to or finishing college. People that skip or drop out of college have a lower probability of getting a job (or as good of a job as they would have gotten with a college degree) or maintaining a job. This affects them, the economy, and possibly the unemployment rate.

There are reasons for why college is priced so high: “They think that if it’s more expensive it must be better. I don’t think colleges want to have high prices, but I do think they see strategic reasons why it may be in their interest to have high prices.” (Sanchez.) This demonstrates how colleges are unnecessarily making college more expensive then it needs to be to benefit the college administrators which is making college less accessible for those who can't afford college. “The astonishing rise in college tuition correlates closely with a huge increase in public subsidies for higher education.” (Campos.) College tuition increase is related to the increase in public subsides. “‘So it’s not that colleges are spending more money to educate students,’ Baum says. ‘It’s that they have to get that money from someplace to replace their lost state funding - and that’s from tuition and fees from students and families.’” College costs are also increasing because they need money to replace their decrease in state funding. (Sanchez.)

I believe that allowing college graduates to pay a percentage of their yearly earnings to pay off their college debt would be a more affordable way for them to pay for college because they are paying off their debt in a way that is manageable so they are more likely to pay off their debt instead of ignoring it.

Keara T.