My name is Aimee and as a college student, I am working ridiculously hard to graduate in four years. Right now, it's looking more and more like it will take me five plus years to graduate college. It is very difficult to graudate within four years. My dream is to continue on to Law School. Not only will I have to pay for minimum of seven years of higher education, but that doesn't even include the living costs and fees for classes. With my law school, there is a study class for the bar exam that will be an EXTRA cost of approximately $10,000. By the time I graduate with my Bachelor's degree, I will have acquired over $100,000 in debt because of student loans and that's not to mention how much law school will add to that $100,000+ debt. That is with financial aid! That means I will have $100,000+ of debt by the time I am 22 years of age and it will continue to grow when I start Law School. Then, if I am lucky enough to find a decent paying job, it will take me practically until I pass away to pay off the loans.

Fortunately, I have strong support from my parents, of which we are still gaining lots of debt. This means our whole life is being put on the line because in my parents' eyes, getting my sister and I a higher education is top priority. My parents are barely able to handle helping with our college expenses and it is really worrying me. Let alone, if I would have even imagined doing this all on my own, I probably wouldn't have even thought about going to college. I can't even imagine what my fellow students, who don't have this support, are going through financially. I witnessed one of my best friends have panic attacks, she was that worried about balancing school payments and classes and her jobs for college payments. She has no support for college because her mother passed away and she is a triplet. If we truly had support from the American Government for education, it wouldn't be this way.

What kills me the most in this situation is the fact that in several other countries (particularly in Europe), college tuition is covered by taxes. It is part of the education system and therefore the students do not have to pay for the tuition and only have to focus on living expenses, such as their shelter, food, class supplies, etc. So why can't we have the same system? Why are we as high school graduates expected to be the backbone of America in the near future if we don't even have the proper support from the government to get there? How are we expected to provide for our future generations if we are not properly educated? How are we even expected to become independent with THOUSANDS of dollars hanging our heads without even having the chance to pay it back???

According to Kathryn Mobley on www.wfdd.org, she states in her article "President Barack Obama Attempts to Reduce Federal Student Loan Debt" that "In 2012, the average undergraduate college debt was more than $27,000. In the same year, graduate students walked away with an average of $169,000."  This debt is increasingly alarming and frustrating for students! Why is this even possible?

Please understand that we need your help. At this rate, a lot of students will probably either not graduate at all because of the costs or will graduate with so much debt that it will be virtually impossible for them to even get anywhere until they can get rid of their burden of debt. As a representative of my fellow students, I can vouch for my peers when I say that we need help in paying for college and it is time for some change with this system!

-Photo Credit:

http://wfdd.org/post/president-barack-obama-attempts-reduce-federal-student-loan-debt