Thanks to the hard work of Kimberly Logan, an early childhood education major at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, more than 400 students, parents, instructors and others on that campus signed petitions today asking federal and state elected leaders to make college education more affordable for more students in a variety of ways, and wore black-and-white t-shirts that read "Got Tuition?" to help make their point. That hard work has paid off in nationwide media coverage, with Logan and her fellow students being seen or featured in several network and cable broadcasts through the day, including the CBS Morning News with Harry Smith and on MSNBC.
At the same time that Logan and her fellow students in Oxford were shaping up their plans for today's "Day of Action" around the presidential debate being held on her campus tonight, another 400 students on four campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, signed the same petitions and put on t-shirts to draw attention to the sole vice presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on October 2.
Logan and other organizers got an early start, meeting before 5 a.m. and quickly attracting the attention of CBS morning anchor Harry Smith himself, who drew one of the "Got Tuition?"-t-shirted organizers on-set inside the Ole Miss Student Union for a feature on the presidential debate of recent years. With the CBS broadcast finished, Logan's team moved to "Issue Alley," where several major media outlets have set up shop on "The Grove" in the center of campus. One member of Logan's team, Gary Bell, lobbied David Axelrod, chief strategist of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, for more attention to college affordability. Viewers of MSNBC and other cable news stations through the day have seen several students wearing the "Got Tuition?" t-shirts and distributing petitions and literature.
About 365 miles north of Oxford, students in St. Louis have partnered with "Got Tuition?" through the week in a series of five "Days of Action" activities at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, Fontbonne University, Harris Stowe State University and Florissant Valley Community College. All of the activities, from Oxford to St. Louis to Kirksville in north central Missouri, hope to underscore the debt burdens of college students.
In north-central Missouri, students at Truman State University staged their own "Day of Action" where nearly 300 students, parents and instructors signed petitions and earned coverage by the local media. Organizer Kristina Rieman said the whole campus community was "very interested in the cause."
More "Days of Action" activities are planned in the St. Louis area through next week, leading up to the debate between Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis on October 2.
Petitions being signed by students, parents and instructors are straightforward in their call for greater federal investment in student aid, at a time when the combination of crises in credit, home foreclosure and market downturns have made it harder and harder for American families to afford college education. The petitions read,
We the undersigned believe everyone who wants to pursue the dream of higher education should be able to. We urge Congress to:
Make student loans more affordable by lowering interest rates, limiting the percentage of income students spend repaying loans, increasing the availability of direct loans, and reinstating the refinancing of existing loans;
Restore the lost purchasing power of the Pell Grant so that students are overburdened with loan debt;
Expand loan forgiveness programs to encourage critical public service careers; and
Provide more federal aid to states to support all higher education institutions.
Click the links to see photos of "Got Tuition?" activities at Florissant Valley Community College, the University of Missouri at St Louis (and another set here), Fontbonne University and Harris Stowe State University.