The 115th Congress is wrapping up their crowded agenda for 2017. With over 2,000 legislative search results for “education” the topic is hot and members of congress aren’t experts on every piece. That presents borrowers with both opportunity and urgency to help their legislators understand the needs of borrowers. To make your future better, borrowers like you need to become effective advocates- and you need to start today. Here’s what you need to know to become the advocate you and the rest of us borrowers need.
What is advocacy?
Advocacy means sharing your support for an issue and persuading decision makers (like your members of Congress) how to act on that issue. Advocacy works effectively as a process designed to achieve a specific outcome rather than a one-way communication. You’re after a concrete and specific answer from your legislator on your request.
U.S. representatives and senators are required to be familiar with hundreds of different issues and determine how to best vote for and represent their constituents’ views. Imagine the challenge of understanding the views of all the individuals who live and work inside the boundaries of the state or district, especially when the majority of your constituents don’t discuss their views with you. Despite this challenge, legislators are ultimately accountable to the voters who elect them. This is why grassroots advocacy works, especially when large numbers of individuals get involved.
There are over 44 million individuals who owe $1.4 trillion dollars in student loan debt. We have strength in numbers. We have gained traction regarding the increasing costs of education. You have power as a borrower and constituent. It’s time to use that power and act as an advocate.
How to be an advocate.
- Contact your legislator.
- Go to https://contactingcongress.org/ to find out who your two state senators are and who your house representative is.
- To find more than a phone number it’s easiest to google the name of your member of Congress and find their website. Typically you will find social media handles (typically Facebook and Twitter) and phone numbers and addresses for their multiple offices.
You’ve got the contact info for your member of Congress but what are you going to say?
- Share the facts about student loan debt.
- At four year public not-for-profit institutions the cost of tuition and fees more than quadrupled from 1964 to 2015 after adjustment for inflation.
- Minimum wage today (in Wisconsin) is $7.25 per hour. In 1963 minimum wage was $9.62 per hour when adjusted to 2015 dollars.
- Combining these two statistics draws an objective picture of increasing costs and decreasing wages to pay for those costs.
- 2015 bachelor’s degree graduates finished with an average of just over $30,000 in student loan debt.
- Objectively, this average is less than the actual cost for tuition and fees and gives no allowance for cost of living. That means graduates are working, obtaining scholarships, or their families are able to pay for some of their college and their cost of living. This information overturns the common belief that if college students would just work harder they could graduate without debt.
- Tell your specific story.
- What did you go to college to be? Or what are you actively attending college to be?
- How much debt do you owe now?
- How much did you tuition increase from start to finish?
- What is your current interest rate?
- What is your debt holding you back from?
- Hit your legislators up on social media.
- Tag them when you see an interesting student loan article.
- Tag them with important statistics.
- Tag them if there’s something you want them to know.
The Goal of Student Loan Advocacy.
Sometimes in our democracy it feels like the interests of those with the most money are represented best. Millennials don’t have the most money, far from it- but the basis of democracy is a numbers game and with 44 million borrowers we can win at that. The goal of borrower advocacy isn’t necessarily for one specific piece of legislation right now. Right now we’re trying to engage our legislators in discussion and make them clearly aware of the diverse positions of the community of student loan borrowers.
Your voice is critical to informing your legislators so they can represent your interests in Congress. Have you ever reached out to a member of Congress? Tell me about it in the comments below or on the Repayable Facebook page. As always if you have any questions hit me up, I’m jeni@repayable.org or you can message me on Instagram @therepayable.
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