Recent Accomplishments

Here's a sampling of some of our recent victories. You can read more about our long history of accomplishments here.

New Voters Project: It’s time to make politicians pay attention to us. The best way to get them to pay attention to young people and the issues we care about is to show up to the polls, so this year we ran a nationwide voter registration and get out the vote effort. In 2008 volunteers across the country helped over 31,820 students register to vote and had 170,000 conversations with students in the days leading up to Election Day to remind them to turn out to the polls.

Making Textbooks More Affordable: Everyone knows that textbooks costs are out of control—the average student spends $900 per year!  We're promoting cost-saving solutions on campus while also tackling publishers' stranglehold on the market to change prices for good.  We're educating students, faculty and bookstores and raising awareness through research and media attention. We've educated more than 700 faculty members about low cost options and make it easier for students to shop around.

Making Higher Education More Affordable: In February 2011, the U.S. House passed H.R. 1, a federal budget for 2011, which included a $5.7 billion cut to the Pell Grant program. If passed, that budget cut would have resulted in a $845 per person decrease in financial aid to the most needy recipients and have a chilling effect on the number of college students who can graduate and get into the workforce - at a time when our economy is just recovering. Volunteers from Arizona PIRG, CALPIRG, ConnPIRG, INPIRG, Maryland PIRG, MASSPIRG, MoPIRG, MontPIRG, NJPIRG, Ohio PIRG, PennPIRG, WashPIRG, and WISPIRG generated thousands of calls and petitions to their Senators urging them to stop the cuts and helped to make sure they did not become law.

Protecting Consumers: The marketplace can be daunting even for the most educated consumer.  To help students avoid rip-offs and unsafe products and have the information to make educated choices, we're creating a set of guides for students.  This semester, we released the Young Persons Guide to Health Care and a Guide to Controlling Your Information on Facebook.

Prop 23 (CA): Since California adopted the Global Warming Solutions Act four years ago, clean energy use has doubled in the state, reducing our dependence on oil, shrinking our carbon footprint, and attracting $9 billion in clean technology investments that have created not only new jobs but whole new industries. Oil companies tried to repeal the law through Prop. 23. This fall, after making more than 160,000 get-out-the-vote contacts, CALPIRG, coalition partners, and voters defeated the Dirty Energy Proposition.  Prop 23, funded by Texas oil companies Valero and Tesero, would have essentially repealed California’s landmark global warming pollution law.

Hunger and Homelessness: With the global recession, more and more people are struggling to meet their basic needs.  This year, we held a week-long series of education and service events on hundreds of college campuses to make sure that these problems stay on the forefront of people's minds.  Then this spring, students around the country held the annual Hunger Cleanup, raising more than $45,000 to fight hunger in their communities.

Sustainable U: Right now, global warming pollution is altering our climate in ways that will cause more heat-related deaths, more unhealthy air days, the spread of infectious disease, and many other negative impacts to our environment. But instead of encouraging the Obama Administration to solve these problems, polluters and their allies in Congress pushed for a series of proposals to block the Clean Air Act from doing its job. Teaming up with other student organizations around the country, volunteers from Arizona PIRG, CALPIRG, ConnPIRG, INPIRG, Maryland PIRG, MASSPIRG, MoPIRG, MontPIRG, NJPIRG, Ohio PIRG, PennPIRG, WashPIRG, and WISPIRG convinced lawmakers to stop these rollbacks.

Energy Service Corps: We partnered with AmeriCorps to launch a new program to reduce energy use and take the mystery out of energy efficiency. We give people the tools and knowledge they need to stop energy from seeping out of their homes.  We serve their immediate needs while also acting as the catalyst in the community to greater energy efficiency.  In our first year running Energy Service Corps, students in NJ, WI, CA and CO educated more than 10,000 elementary and high school students about energy efficiency and conducted individual energy efficiency assessments in more than 2000 homes, apartments and businesses.

No Drills, No Spills: After the Gulf oil spill disaster, we joined a national coalition of groups to call for an end to new offshore drilling and a renewed commitment to breaking our country's dependence on oil. More than 400,000 Americans signed petitions and made calls to the Obama administration calling for a ban on new offshore drilling. And despite heavy pressure from big oil and gas companies, we won. On December 1st, 2010 the Obama Administration announced that it will protect the coasts of the continental United States from new drilling through 2017.