Making Higher Education Affordable
In March 2010, President Obama signed into law the Student Aid and
Fiscal Responsibility Act, which invests in financial aid by ending
sweetheart deals to big banks and loan companies. It infuses $36
billion into the financially strapped Pell grant program, benefiting 8
million students. It also improves the Income Based Repayment program,
benefiting 1 million borrowers by capping repayment at no more than ten
percent of their salary and allowing for loan forgiveness after 20
years. The bill also cut $60 billion in subsidies for banks and lenders
to pay for college affordability measures. Ohio PIRG Student
Chapters and Student PIRG lobbying and organizing over the past several
years was critical to the passage of this historic law.
Global Warming Solutions
Ohio PIRG students have joined together with PIRG students in other
states
in educating the country about the solutions we have to global warming
and building support for local, state and national policies that will
put those solutions into practice. In Spring 2010, we mobilized over
30,000 students and community members nationally to call for clean,
renewable energy and an end to our dependence on oil and coal. We held
events on and off campus to educate thousands of people, resulting in
more than 100 news stories about our work.
New Voters Project
Launched more than 25 years ago, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters
Project has helped to register more than 700,000 voters and make more
than a million personalized voting reminders since 2004, making it the
nation’s largest nonpartisan grassroots mobilization effort targeting
young voters. During that period, young voter turnout has consistently
increased, rising from 36% in 2000 to more than 52% in 2008.
The 2008 election saw young voter turnout surge by at least 2.2
million votes over 2004 levels. Students involved with the New Voters
Project played a big role in the impressive turnout of students in this
historic election. On 100 campuses in 17 states, the Student PIRGs' New
Voters Project combined old-fashioned pavement pounding with
cutting-edge technology to reach young voters.
On Oberlin’s campus, Ohio PIRG and the Coalition for Oberlin Voters
helped to collect over 2,000 voter registration forms for the 2008
elections. They also worked with over 6 groups on and off campus to
help register voters and to work around a new Ohio law that
disenfranchised students. As part of the Coalition, Ohio PIRG not only
promoted early voting by helping bus over 1,200 students to the Board of
Elections for early voting, but also educated students of their rights
at the polls. Nationally, youth voter turnout increased by over 2.2
million votes compared to the 2004 election!
The CARD Act
In February 2010, the “Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and
Disclosure (CARD) Act” went into effect. The Student PIRGs and Ohio PIRG
students helped pass this strong legislation, which ends
some of the worst abuses of the credit card industry, including some
which are often targeted at college students. The CARD Act eliminates
excessive penalty fees, unfair billing practices, and unjustified and
retroactive interest charges. It also restricts and requires greater
transparency for marketing targeted exclusively at college campuses or
consumers under the age of 21. Despite the credit card industry's
lobbying to defeat the bill, the Senate and the House both passed it
with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.
Making Health Care Work
In March 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act into law. This law takes unprecedented steps to
lower costs for families and small businesses and prohibits insurers
from using pre-existing conditions, errors on forms, and lifetime or
yearly caps to drop patient coverage or price it out of reach. It also
helps young adults – a highly uninsured demographic - by allowing them
to stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26.
Truth About Credit
Since 2007, Ohio PIRG students and USPIRG have been running the
Truth About Credit campaign to expose dangerous credit card practices
and clean them up. We organized “FEESA” educational tables on colleges
nationwide, where we acted like credit card marketers but instead
promoted principles for responsible credit card marketing on campus.
In 2008, we also surveyed over 2,000 students and released a subsequent
report, “The Campus Credit Card Trap,” which garnered nationwide media
coverage.
Student Debt Alert
Our Student Debt Alert campaign raises awareness about the growing
problem of student debt and calls for solutions. Through the campaign,
over five thousand students posted their photos and stories on the
Student Debt Yearbook, to illustrate to decision makers the importance
of financial aid programs. Hundreds of additional students sent
testimony to the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education
urging them to address student debt issues facing students in Ohio and across the country.
Affordable Textbooks
The Student PIRGs along with Ohio PIRG students have been
leading the charge to make textbooks affordable. We have been building
support for “open textbooks” – books that are available to students for
free – and signed on over 2,000 college professors who support using
open textbooks in their classes. In August 2008, we helped get an
Affordable Textbooks provision included in the federal Higher Education
Opportunity Act. The provision helps lower the cost of textbooks for
millions of students by requiring publishers to disclose textbook
pricing and revision information to faculty and requiring publishers to
offer textbooks and supplemental materials "unbundled." It also asks
colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks, including prices,
for each course when students are registering for classes.
Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness
Students in Ohio joined together with thousands of students on
campuses across the country through our annual Hunger Cleanup each
April to raise money and volunteer in a day of service in their
communities. Since students started this annual tradition in 1984, more
than 150,000 have volunteered and their combined efforts have raised
over $2 million. This year, in
addition to service events and food drives, Ohio PIRG students donated
funds to relief projects in Haiti.
In November 2009, we
launched the Resolve Conference, where 250 students were joined by
activists, advocates and organizers for a weekend of education and
training to create anti-poverty campaigns in their communities. Coming
out of the conference, participants joined hundreds of campuses
holding educational and service events during the annual Hunger and
Homelessness Awareness Week.
21st Century Transportation
We’re building support for 21st century transportation in America,
including high-speed rail and more and better mass transit. In 2009,
Student PIRG and Ohio PIRG student activists mobilized their peers and
helped persuade
Congress to include an additional $2.5 billion down-payment for
high-speed rail in their appropriations bill, more than doubling
President Obama’s original recommendation.
Environmental Protection
Ohio PIRG students organized
to pass the first statewide bill that protects swimmers from polluted
waters, the Beach Bill.
Working with the Ecopledge campaign, Ohio
PIRG helped convince Staples to stop selling paper made from endangered
forests.
Ohio PIRG helped to win historic protection of 60
million acres of our national forests, including the Tongass Rainforest
in Alaska, from logging, mining, and clear-cutting.
As part of a
national coalition, Ohio PIRG helped convince members of the Ohio
Congressional delegation to vote against drilling in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.
To prevent drilling in Lake Erie, The Ohio PIRG Oberlin Chapter collected 900 postcards
addressed to both state senatorial candidates in the November
2006 election. After
collecting these postcards Ohio PIRG students were able to meet with both candidates and
educate them on the importance of the issue of drilling in Lake Erie.
Toxic Pollution and Public Health
Ohio PIRG students and advocates worked to pressure Congress to
pass legislation providing $15 million in federal funding to help
relocate River Valley Schools, which were built on top of a military
toxic waste dump. Students collected 1600 petition signatures that were
delivered to Governor Taft demanding the immediate relocation on the
students in the River Valley Schools, in a press conference covered by
state media outlets.
Consumer/Tenant's Rights
Students conducted a local landlord
and tenant survey, and then used it to find housing for students and
community members with the best landlords.
Ohio PIRG won a class
action lawsuit against Agra General, the country's largest egg
distributor for repackaging six month old eggs.
Accomplishments
over the Years
Ohio PIRG won 15 lawsuits against some of Ohio's
worst water polluters.
Ohio PIRG saved students across the
country $8 billion in student financial aid through federal legislation.
Students
were effective in strengthening clean air standards to protect public
health nationwide, including closing a loophole that allowed SUVs and
light trucks to pollute far more then cars.
Students initiated an
expansion of the recycling program at Oberlin College.
Ohio PIRG
worked with a coalition of student groups to help over 1,000
students register to vote over the past 3 years.
