College students need tax deductions - response to questionnaire - Essay Example

I handed out my research questionnaire to 16 people, who are my target audience for the speech. Through questions asked therein, I discovered that there was an even divide between those who have a college graduate parent: 50% stated that at least one of their parents was a college graduate, whereas the other 50% stated that none of their parents was a college graduate. Out of these students, the majority (about 69%) claimed that they did not have to take care of their college expenses themselves, whereas about 31% stated that they were taking care of their college expenses, including tuition, by themselves.

Further, 7 (about 44%) of them stated that they do not work, i.e. they do not hold any sort of job, whereas 2 (about 12%) of them worked around 10 to 15 hours per week; 3 of them (about 19%) claimed that they worked 15 to 20 hours per week and the rest of them (about 25%) stated that they worked more than 20 hours per week. The findings show that a majority of the students does little to no work in the way of employment. When asked how many hours would suffice for them to afford college, about 19% said that they did not need work to afford college, and a similar percentage said that they had never thought about this question.

Another 19% said that 20 hours per week would suffice, whereas 6% said that 15 hours and about 37% said that more than 20 hours per week would be sufficient. A vast majority (about 69%) stated that they did not have to work extra to pay their taxes and cover their college expenses simultaneously; however, the other 31% does need to do so. Around 44% of them stated that they had never thought about the tax rates for single college students, and an identical percentage stated that it is too high, only 2 (12%) thought that the current tax rate is reasonable.

However, 100% of them would support a decrease in the current tax rate. Out of these, around 19%, about 12% and 50% wanted the tax rate to be reduced to 20 percent, 18 percent and 15 percent respectively, with about 6 percent stating that they did not want it changed. About 62% said that they found it hard to cope with their studies due to their work responsibilities whereas the other 48 or so percent did not have any such problems. When asked what problems they have had to face due to juggling work and studies together, the responses were quite varied: some of them simply stated that they do not work, whereas those who worked stated that their grades suffered, they were sleep deprived, had little to no social life, had professors who gave them extra work on weekends when they had to work most of the weekend, had a lack of concentration at both work and college as well as an unbalanced diet.

In short there are multiple problems that they face due to this.The survey shows that a majority may not be burdened by additional work in order to cover college expenses, however, those who do face a myriad of problems. It is very interesting that everyone supports my proposal of tax reduction, therefore, I will not have to convince any of them to agree to my proposal, rather my research will now be geared towards the advantages of such a tax deduction. I will focus on how a reduction in tax will lead to students having to work for a lesser amount of time as well as easing a lot of their work related stress, stress that also causes grades to suffer.

Moreover, I will try to find a link between a more active social life and better performance at college.