debt

There's a lot of focus right now on the upcoming election - as their should be. But it's important to remember that elections aren't ends in themselves. They are vehicles the people use to usher in policy changes.

When Rock the Vote released their poll of Millennials (ppt) a few weeks ago, topping the list of concerns was the economy. Specifically, young people were concerned about their ability to obtain jobs that would allow them to climb out of debt and begin to build a life, whether that be supporting a child or buying a house (or both). This is the number one concern of Millennials, who on average graduate with $20k of debt and may be the first American generation to not do better financially than their parents.

What are the policies that could change this situation and provide economic security to our generation? These are the questions that Demos hopes to answer at their upcoming conference: A Better Deal - Reclaiming Economic Security for a New Generation.

The conference, scheduled for May 8th and 9th in DC, will feature an impressive array of speakers including Katrina vanden Heuval of The Nation, Andy Stern, President of SEIU, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, ED of the Drum Major Institute, as well as a number of youth organizing leaders. Panels include:

User-Generated Breakout Sessions
Registrants will have a chance to submit requests for topics or proposals to host a session during online registration. At the conference, these small group discussions or training sessions will allow participants to learn from each other and connect with other activists in their region or issue area.

Paycheck Politics
This panel will focus on the quality of jobs available to young adults in the New Economy, comparing wages, job security, unionization and benefits to the jobs that sustained previous generations. Speakers will also offer strategies for improving job quality, including living wage laws, career ladder and green job programs, traditional unionization and alternative organizing strategies including worker centers.

Higher and Higher Education
This panel will focus on issues of higher education access, affordability and debt. In this generation, the college degree is what the high school diploma was in the previous generation: an entry requirement for middle-class jobs. The panel will explore the attack on affirmative action amidst the widening racial gap in higher education, the drivers behind skyrocketing tuitions and student debt, and offer policy solutions.

Getting a Life: Housing, Health Care and Child Care
This panel will focus on affordability barriers to the necessities of middle-class life: housing, health care and child care. Panelists will describe why and how costs have risen, what public policies could help young adults and families, and how activists can play a role.

Generation Debt
This panel will focus on the rise of personal debt among young adults, explaining how culture, financial pressures and new lending industry practices have played a role. Panelists will discuss strategies to combat payday lending, abusive credit card practices, predatory home loans and other high-cost credit.

Young Elected Officials
This panel will showcase a group of young elected officials who have made the economic concerns of young adults and families central to their campaigns and agendas.

Race, Ethnicity and Economic Destiny
This panel will explore the connection between the millennial generation's two claims to fame: the most diverse generation in American history and the first that is widely predicted to not surpass their parents' standards of living. Panelists will discuss the economic status of immigrants and their children; the effect of the racial wealth gap; the economic contours of mass youth incarceration, and issues of political power and the challenges of winning broad government investments in a more diverse population.

We're Broke and We Vote
This panel will focus on strategies to build a movement for a better deal for young adults. Panelists will discuss the power of young voters, the obstacles to moving a young adult economic agenda and how to mobilize young adults around these issues.

Many of the topics that will be covered at the conference were written about in a recent special report by The American Prospect: Mobilizing Millennials. I highly recommend both the conference and the report for those looking to understand the economic concerns of young voters, and the policies young people will ask the next administration to implement.

I'll be at the conference live-blogging, as well as speaking on a panel. Hope to see you there.

It's been a shady week here at FM. Content has been light as I've been sick most of the week, and struggling through a major work crunch at both my day job and with the book. To top it all off, the site was down for an hour this morning. Sorry about that.

Next week I hope things will be back to normal, and I expect that I will also finally roll out that second big announcement I alluded to a couple weeks ago. In the meantime, here are a few stories you should check out:

• In a piece at Huffington Post, Jason Carter, grandson of the former President Jimmy Carter, lays out a case for a new, service-oriented politics, and promotes an organization we've profiled here at FM before: Democrats Work.
• The new student aid bill we blogged about earlier this summer emerged from conference committee yesterday. The bill, which is slated to reduce lender subsidies and substantially increase need-based student aid, will now go back to the House and Senate for approval. Details on the bill, how it came to pass, and the process moving forward can be found here. The Project on Student Debt has a fact sheet.
• The League has a new website. When things quite down, maybe I'll give it a review.

Update:
Here's the list of swing votes who might side with Nelson and the corporate lenders over debt-ridden students:

Alexander (R - TN)
Bayh (D - IN)
Carper (D - DE)
Coleman (R - MN)
Collins (R - ME)
Hatch (R - UT)
Landrieu (D - LA)
McCaskill (D - MO)
Murkowski (R - AK)
Nelson, Ben (D - NE)
Nelson, Bill (D - FL)
Roberts (R - KS)
Tester (D - MT)
Webb (D - VA)

Call their offices and urge them to vote YES on S. 1762, and NO on the Nelson-Burr Amendment. The Capitol Switchboard can be reached at (202) 224-3121.
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Cross posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. Please recommend.

Last week, most student organizations rejoiced as the Democrats shepherded the Cost of College Reduction Act through the House of Representatives. The Bill represented the largest increase in student aid since the G.I. Bill. It accomplished this in part by cutting excess government subsidies to corporate lenders, who were fattening their wallets on the backs of debt-ridden students. Republicans tried unsuccessfully to kill the bill in the House. The Gavel had an excellent post about that fight and the bill’s passage.

The Senate version of the bill – The Higher Education Access Act of 2007 - is set to provide $17 billion in student aid to college students and recent graduates, among other provisions to further protect students. But Ben Nelson (D-NE), whose home state is also home to Nelnet, one of the biggest corporate lenders, is trying to weaken the Senate version of the bill and return $3 billion of that to the lending industry so they can continue to line their pockets on with corporate welfare.

What I’m hearing is that the cloture votes on Iraq and the DOD reauthorization are going to fail, and the Higher Education Access Act of 2007 will be brought to the floor instead, with voting to be scheduled for today or tomorrow. Right now, Republicans supposedly have 3-6 Democrats willing to side with lenders on the Amendment, so they are likely to see it pass.

Here’s what you can do:

• Call your Senator and urge them to vote YES on S. 1762, and NO on the Nelson-Burr Amendment. The Capitol Switchboard can be reached at (202) 224-3121, and the operators can tell you both who your Senators are and connect you.
• Also ask which way your Senator plans on voting. If we can find out who those 3-6 Democrats are that are supporting lender subsidies over students we can ratchet up the pressure on them.

If you find out which Democrats (besides Nelson) are in favor of the Nelson-Burr Amendment, contact me and I'll keep an updated list and post around the blogosphere.

The lenders (and Nelson’s) argument is that cuts in subsidies need to be scaled back so that lenders can offer students benefits, and that subsidy cuts will cause the loan market to consolidate and there will be less choice for students. This is bunk. The loan market is already consolidated, and less than 10% of students ever see a dime of those supposed “benefits.” Meanwhile, groups like NelNet and Sallie Mae have used those government subsidies to give outrageous benefits packages to CEOs, reap hundreds of millions in additional profits, and improperly wine and dine university officials who should be protecting the interests of students.

$3 billion could fund 588,000 Pell Grants at the maximum level of $5100. As millions of students are getting priced out of college, or saddled with unmanageable levels of debt, our government should be voting to protect and aid students, not funnel more money to corporations already reaping hundreds of millions in government subsidies and profits.

DMI Blog has a great post up about inequality and higher education costs:

In a nut shell: a person's access to higher education is becoming more and more unequal as a new report by the Education Trust points out. They are right when they say "That is bad for low-income and minority families and bad for America."

The report, Promise Abandoned: How Policy Choices and Institutional Practices Restrict College Opportunites, highlights two huge problems in achieving equality of access to higher education: college costs and student retention. The cost of four-year college has increased over the last twenty years faster than inflation or the family income. Funding impacts the number of low-income students going to college. If you are from a high-income family you have a 75% chance of getting a bachelor's degree by age 24; low-income fewer than 9% chance of a bachelor's by 24.

There's a lot of fantastic stuff coming out about student debt, predatory lending, and other financial/educational issues facing people in their 20's. I'm hoping to have a policy post up about it later this week.

Also hope to have a report from RootsCampDC as well.