A Successful Day!

It was a busy and successful day for the Drake Democrats on the student loan cuts issue. We started off the day with a nice front-page picture in the Times-Delphic of us protesting Jim Nussle last Thursday. But the big event of the day was our press conference with Congressman Boswell.

We invited Congressman Boswell, who has been very helpful in providing more Pell Grants for college students, to come to Drake and hear students give their personal stories on the kinds of hardships that they have faced in affording college. We had several news outlets show up, and I know that we were shown on KCCI this evening - I can't remember who the other news groups were - if anybody knows, leave a comment on that so we can search for it. Also, school board member Ako Abdul-Samad came and talked about some of the hardships he's been hearing from young people and their families in Des Moines as they prepare to pay for college.

Both Boswell and Ako seemed to really enjoy the event and we were very happy to have them. We've been wanting to get Boswell by for quite some time and this was a really great event for him to come to. We'll get some more info up on the main website, under the press release section, and perhaps start a new page if we can find online copies of the stories that the news ran on us. Thanks so much for everyone who helped out today!

Spreading the "Nussle-Hates-College-Students" Message

Drake Democrats members took to the intersection of Ingersol and MLK Blvd today with numerous signs protesting Jim Nussle's attacks on our education. It turned out to be quite the glorious victory, with surprisingly no accidents as drivers slowed down to read our signs, with our hands nearly freezing, and with us finding that Ingersol and MLK is perhaps the most dangerous street to cross in Des Moines. Among the highlights were: the van of high schoolers on their way to the state wrestling tournament that screamed several anti-Nussle slogans we can't quite put on signs; the crazy homeless guy that agreed that all politicians are evil; and the guy in the Lexus SUV that yelled at us to get jobs.

The actual responses from people were positive by about a 4-1 margin. Though I think most people were unsure of who Jim Nussle is - which just helps out even more, because their first association of his name will be with making college less affordable.

All in all, a successful and just really fun event.

A Fun Time With The UNO Democrats

Over the weekend I was able to meet a lot of great folks from the UNO Democrats out in Omaha. They were holding a training session for college democrats groups and brought in a good amount of people to learn about several campaign strategies.

But probably the most productive part was hanging out with them afterwards and exchanging ideas of good programs and events to put on. The UNO Dems have been quite successful with events and fundraising, and are thinking of holding their own Liberal Date Auction, which we'll happily give them assistance on ideas for. We're also hoping they can come out to Drake at some point in time. Perhaps Relays might actually be a good time to hold several events that we can invite other college dems groups to.

Anyway, the "Students Can't Afford Jim Nussle" campaign is continuing, as we have a few good events planned for this week and are working on a big press conference for next week.

-Patrick Rynard

Nussle Campaign Updates

We had a really great story about us in the Times-Delphic today - we'll try to get it up on the website soon. We didn't end up getting much news media out to our first press conference, but we're quite optimistic about our next one. We did have to cancel a protest today, as we figured the several inches of snow and below 10 degrees weather just wasn't quite worth it.

But we're looking ahead to next week and organizing another press conference in which we get several stories from students that are facing much higher costs for college thanks to Nussle's cuts to student loans. We're also hoping to get other colleges in on the effort and make this a state-wide campaign to increase awareness. We already have a few other colleges expressing interest, and hopefully we'll be able to organize a state-wide response here very soon.

We're doing very well with our signatures on our petitions - we collected well over 300 from students on Monday and Tuesday from just standing out several places on campus and asking people as they passed by to class. I'm quite surprised we got so many considering most people are pretty hesitant to sign anything, much less slow down when late to class. But many students that aren't usually all that interested in politics have been very upset about the loan cuts and are very enthusiastic and supportive when we approach them. Thanks to our nine members who stood out in the cold to ask students to sign the petitions. We're still working on collecting many more from people that just didn't happen to pass by while we were out there, and I figure we'll get a few hundred more. And we're also hoping to get other college democrats organizations to start up petitions at their schools too.

That's all for now, check back soon.

First Day of "Students Can't Afford Jim Nussle" Campaign

Our campaign to hold Jim Nussle accountable for his cuts to the student loan program is off to a great start! We got close to 100 signatures on our petition in our first day, and that was with just two people asking students on campus. Tomorrow we plan to have many more out on campus collecting signatures.

Also tomorrow, we will hold a press conference at 10am in Olmsted (at Pomerantz Stage) to announce to the media all of our plans for the campaign, and to explain just how much Jim Nussle's cuts hurt Drake students. We found the average amount a Drake student will pay more thanks to the new interest rate: $1,540!

We will also be having a meeting on the student loan cuts this Wednesday, at 9pm, at Pomerantz Stage in Olmsted. We'll be discussing how much this will affect us, and organize students for our upcoming events to protest Nussle. Keep checking back throughout the week for more updates!

Holding Jim Nussle Accountable for Higher Education Cuts

Hey everyone-

The Drake Democrats are going to soon set out on a campaign to demonstrate our outrage that Republicans in Congress are putting college students deeper into debt in order to fund tax breaks for millionares (and also to show the Democrat alternatives to reducing higher education costs)

Republican Congressman Jim Nussle of Eastern Iowa is largely to blame for selling out our education and our future, but we're going to show him that college students do, in fact, pay attention to what he's doing in Congress. Keep checking back for upcoming actions - we're finalizing a campaign strategy this week.

Here's an editorial from yesterday's Times-Delphic that explains the situation:

Republicans Raising Student Loan Costs
By Patrick Rynard

If you don’t have a part-time job right now, you might want to start searching the classifieds section. Because if you’re paying your Drake tuition with federal loans, Republicans in Congress just made your life a whole lot harder.

On Wednesday, just one day after President Bush vowed in his State of the Union speech to make America more competitive by improving education, the Republican-led House cut the federal student loan program by $12.7 billion. It was the largest cut in that program’s history, and accounted for about 1/3 of the deficit-reduction package the President soon hopes to sign.

The consequences for college students couldn’t be much worse. What it basically means is that when you reapply this summer for your federal student loans to pay for next year’s tuition, your interest rate is going to rise from 5.3% to 6.8%. And if your parents have a PLUS loan (as I believe mine do), their interest rate is going to shoot from 6.1% to 8.5%. And keep in mind that Drake is raising its tuition once again, so those loans are going to have to be for even more money.

While the bill does increase borrowing limits for some students, overall it will send many of us into more debt for more years. And it will likely even close the door on the dream of attending college for some high school students who simply can’t afford it anymore.

But what can you really do about our government’s lack of concern for our financial future? Well, on a personal level, you might want to see if you can graduate early. However, if you really care about your and your fellow Americans’ education, you should look at who supported these cuts.

Some people think the Republican and Democratic parties are pretty similar, but the differences couldn’t have been clearer this week. The vote for the bill in the House was 216-214, with every Democrat voting against it. The same occurred in the Senate with a vote of 51-50, with Vice President Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote.

Democrats fought very hard to prevent the cuts, and have consistently called for making college more affordable by setting lower fixed interest rates on student loans, providing more and larger government scholarships, and even looking into the idea of making college tuition tax-deductible.

Republicans, on the other hand, further demonstrated how little they care about college students and their families when they also called this week for another $70 billion in tax cuts, overwhelmingly aimed at the richest in society.

The priorities of Republicans couldn’t be more backwards: help those who already have wealth; hurt those who seek to gain it. In his State of the Union speech, Bush even specifically said that his budget would cut or eliminate programs that weren’t working or “not fulfilling essential priorities.” So either we’re all mistaken in thinking our low-interest student loans actually help us, or we’re just simply not an “essential priority.”

This is the perfect case of how the low voting turnout among college-aged students directly affects whether government cares about us or not. So if you want to do something about the affordability of your education, keep in mind how some Iowan legislators voted on the issue.

Republican Congressman Jim Nussle, from eastern Iowa, didn’t just vote for the cuts, but helped create the plan as the chairman of the House Budget Committee. This fall, he is likely to be the Republican nominee to be Iowa’s next governor.

Our own Congressman, Democrat Leonard Boswell, voted against the bill, and has often pushed for increasing the size of Pell Grants. He will be up for what may be a tough reelection fight.
My suggestion to you is to remind our political leaders in Washington that college students would prefer to not be driven deep into debt in order to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. So when November 7th rolls around, you should go out to the polls and thank Congressman Boswell, and tell Congressman Nussle that he shouldn’t continue destroying our future as Governor of Iowa.

(Printed in Drake University’s Times-Delphic newspaper, February 6th, 2006)