The Cost of Higher Education

My whole life I have been taught that through hard work, I am capable of anything and everything. My whole life I have drilled this concept into my school work and choice in classes, I cannot tell you how many all nighters I have pulled and events I have missed out on for the sole purpose of finishing a project or studying for a test. I am writing this letter thoroughly concerned about this country and its future. I am part of a generation that needs to be acknowledged and pushed towards greatness. The U.S. is a country founded off of equal opportunity for everyone, and to this day consistently pushes the idea of "the american dream" into the minds of our youth, but for all I have seen, the American dream is dead and we as a society, through the ever growing cost of tuition and burden of student loans have killed it. In our economy, it is not the fact that there are not jobs out there that is a problem, it is the fact that the jobs that are available cannot be held because we, the society, have not provided the education to fill them. The fact that a college diploma today is equivalent to a high school diploma even 20 years ago, is indication that we as a country, as a first world country, should be striving towards free or low-cost higher education. College is no longer an option to thrive in our society today, and to burden students with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans simply because they wanted a higher education is a backwards, unethical and corrupt system. And the fact that the government is making money through interest rates off of students trying to receive a higher education instead of finding other ways to fund our large military spending budget, is something I must say makes me ashamed to be American. Often I hear the phrase "well what if that aborted baby were to cure cancer?" And I cannot help but think to myself, well, what if I could afford college? Could I cure cancer?