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Dear Mr. President,
First and foremost I would like to congratulate you in becoming the 44th president of the United States. Your eagerness and determination helped many Americans believe in the changes that you planned to make which is why I believe you are our president today. Although the economy was a major issue during the presidential election, education is most important to me because I am a college student.
One of the major issues within our education system is college not being affordable enough for all citizens. This financial barrier prevents many people from obtaining the education they need to have a successful life. Making college affordable seems like a challenging task but you made it seem very possible. In the ‘Reclaiming the American Dream Speech’ you stated, “We need to put a college education within reach of every American. That’s the best investment we can make in our future” (Obama 2007). This quote is very significant because there are many citizens who do not think they will ever have a chance to attend college.
In order to make this possible you proposed certain plans for higher education. The most vital issue is the cost of a college education. In order to make college affordable for all citizens you said you would create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. Your campaign site states, “This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students” (Obama). Since the tax credit is fully refundable this will help many low-income families who cannot afford to pay for college. The person who receives this credit for college must complete 100 hours of community service which does not amount to the $4,000 they receive for college. The only problem is, if the tuition of college keeps raising this $4,000 credit is not nearly enough to attend college.
Another plan you proposed that would help save money deals with student loans. This is very important because many students like myself do not want to take out student loans to attend college. You stated, “You can save billions of dollars by overhauling the federal student loan program, and creating a system that bypasses banks and private lenders in favor of having the U.S. Education Department run a direct lending program”(Abramson). I agree that this will save large amounts of money if our education systems give the loans out instead of banks.
The last plan that was most important to me was expanding the Pell Grant because I receive this grant. This would be very helpful for many citizens who rely on financial aid to attend college. Your campaign site states, “Two decades ago, the maximum Pell Grant covered 55 percent of costs at a public four-year college, compared with only 32 percent today. The first bill Barack Obama introduced in the U.S. Senate would have helped make college more affordable for many Americans by increasing the maximum Pell Grant from the limit of $4050 to a new maximum 0f $5,100” (Obama). This huge increase in the Pell Grant will provide many benefits to students who rely on this money. I also thought it was a clever idea that you would try to increase the grant as college tuition increases.
According to the Politifact.com, you have made “510 promises, of which 37 related to education.”Although it seems like many of your promises are not related to education I hope the 37 you proposed to make actually work. During the elections, education is an issue that is supposed to be resolved but not many presidents have found the right solutions. Since I will be a college student during your term I surely hope that the changes you offered to make are successful because many of them will affect my family and I. I am ready for your “promises of CHANGE”. Thanks for your time!
Sincerely,
Brittani McKnight
Works Cited
Abramson, Larry. "McCain, Obama Offer Dueling Education Plans ." NPR : National Public Radio :. 28 July 2008. 1 Mar. 2009 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93004032.
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden: Making College Affordable for Everyone." Obama Biden. 1 Mar. 2009 www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/CollegeAffordabilityFactSheet.pdf.
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need Education." Welcome to Obama for America. 1 Mar. 2009 http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/.
"PolitiFact Sorting out the truth in politics." St. Petersburg Times Online. 1 Mar. 2009 http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/.
Identity theft is one of the major crimes we face in today’s society. As stated in a survey done by Javelin Strategy and Research, “27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years” (Privacy Rights, 2003). Identity theft can be practiced in numerous ways such as pretending to be someone else or gaining access to someone’s finances. Several people are unaware of how easy it is for criminals to collect the information they need to ruin someone’s life. Simple aspects such as your date of birth, full name or your address can provide enough detail for a criminal to access some of your most personal information. One of the main places that people have their identities stolen is through the internet. As funny as it may sound this is one of the central places that criminals start to dig up all the information they can find. Your identity through the internet is more valuable than you think and some people take this fact for granted. Many Americans have personal web pages where they disclose information about themselves. Some pages include schools they attend or their favorite things to do but some people are not so smart about what they put on these pages.
One of the most popular social networking websites is Facebook where millions of people create profiles every day. Facebook is a great way to communicate with your friends and meet new people but it has its disadvantages as well. When you sign up to create a profile on Facebook, the first thing that you must provide is your full name and email address. Right from the start without having anything else but your name and email address anyone who has access to your profile can start the scam there. Your name could be used in personal searches and who knows what else someone could find. Your email address can also be traced which leads to other ways unwanted people can contact you. Once people create profiles they usually put much more than their name and email address which makes it even worse.
An article titled, “Facebook users easy targets for identity theft”, mentions a study conducted in 2007 on Facebook identity theft by Sophos research. The research team made a fake Facebook profile and asked 200 users to reveal some of their personal data (Messmer, 2007). The article states, “Out of the 200 friend requests, Sophos received 82 responses with 72 percent of those respondents divulging one or more email address; 84 percent listing their full date of birth; 87 percent providing details about education or work; 78 percent listing their current address or location; 23 percent giving their phone number and 26 percent providing their instant messaging screen name” (Messmer, 2007). If people are willing to put this much information about themselves on their Facebook profiles then they are more than likely to be victims of identity theft because the data can be easily found.
Another common case of identity theft is to impersonate someone else. This theft has happened numerous times on Facebook as well as MySpace. It is so easily done that these websites should take more measures in finding ways to stop this crime. In order to impersonate someone, a person makes up a false profile or web page and adds pictures of a fake person. Then they start adding friends and communicating with people as if they were that person. This can be very dangerous because the people who think this person is real are being fooled. A tragic example of this is shown in the article “Who’s Keeping Students Safe Online” by Zach Miners. The article mentions an incident that occurred in 2006 when a Missouri woman pretended to be a teenage boy. The article states, “The woman, Lori Drew, posed as a teenage boy on MySpace two years ago and sent first friendly then menacing messages to 13-year-old Megan Meier, who killed herself in October 2006 shortly after receiving a message that said in part, “The world would be a better place without you”(Miners, 2009). Things like this happen every day and if someone was able to stop these criminals then Megan Meier might still be alive.
Since identity theft is a growing crime people should start taking more steps to protect themselves. You can start protecting yourself by not putting all your personal information onto your profile which includes your full name, full date of birth or address. This information could give criminals access to more things than you think. Also avoid putting up pictures that you wouldn’t want strangers to see. These can be used on other websites or by someone else to make a false profile. Another piece of advice is stated in an article titled “Facebook Identity Theft” by Choice Magazine. The article states, “When setting up a Facebook account, take advantage of the privacy controls- you want to make sure it’s only real friends who can see your details. And only accept ‘friend requests’ from people you know and trust” (Choice, 2008). Using these few tips can help save you from getting your identity stolen.
In conclusion, there are many problems dealing with the representation of identity on the internet but one of the most prominent issues is identity theft. People have their identities stolen everyday just by putting too much personal information on the internet. Some people do not think twice about what others can do with their information and this can really cause loads of damage. Some people even get bold enough to create false profiles and pretend to be someone else which can cause problems as well. If this is something that you do not want to happen to you then you should take every possible step to protect yourself and think twice about the information you put on the internet. Your identity can easily be taken by someone else.
Works Cited
