Florida PIRG Campus Action blocks an automatic textbooks billing plan at the University of Central Florida
In the 2017 budget proposal, the U.S. House proposed cutting $3.3 billion from the Pell Grant program. MASSPIRG Students and Student PIRG volunteers came together to generate more than three thousand calls and petitions to their Senators urging them to stop this enormous cut to financial aid, ensuring that it did not become law.
The Student PIRGs launched the Open Textbook Alliance, which works with student governments nationwide to pass policies supporting the adoption of free open textbooks. It seeks to replicate successful programs like the ones at UMass Amherst and UConn Storrs that have saved students millions of dollars.
Chris Lindstrom, USPIRG’s Higher Education Program Director, worked in a Department of Education negotiated rulemaking session to craft the “borrower defense” program. It investigates complaints from students who have been taken advantage of by predatory lenders and for-profit schools, like Corinthian College and ITT Tech, and allows them to get some or all of their loans forgiven.
In California, we collected thousands of petitions, held nearly a dozen press conferences, and helped pass Prop 67 which finalized California’s plastic grocery bag ban – the first statewide ban of its kind in the country.
In Massachusetts, we passed city council resolutions in Salem and Dartmouth to move towards 100% renewable energy, and successfully lobbied our State Representatives to raise the cap on solar which will provide enough new clean energy to power over 100,000 homes in across the state.