student debt

After nearly 200 students protested outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), Secretary of Education Arne Duncan agreed to meet with students to talk about the student debt crisis.

The students, representing the Student Labor Action Project and the United States Student Association, peacefully delivered letters requesting a meeting with Sec. Duncan  to discuss the $84 million loan-servicing contract the DOE currently holds with student loan giant Sallie Mae.

Sec. Duncan’s agreement to meet represents a positive step forward for students to have a seat at the table with the DOE to address the nation’s growing student debt problem. 

Ian Reese, a student from the University of Wisconsin, said “We want the Department to stand with students, not corporations like Sallie Mae, whose predatory loan practices are saddling people with debt from cradle to the grave.”

With fists in the air, the students silently marched towards 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue. Many even locking arms as they moved forward together. As we walked through the intersection together, I looked around me at the 300 students marching towards Sallie Mae to demand student loan debt forgiveness only days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announce it had surpassed one trillion dollars.

The days leading up to this moment were spent at USSA’s 43rd Annual Grassroots Legislative Conference (LegCon) were the same students were attending workshops, Legislative Briefings, Lobby Clinics, and enjoying Awards Dinners. The workshops ranged from “Sallie Mae Sellouts: Taking Back Our Education” to “Radicalism in the Student Movement”, where students learned a history of action by the student movements before ours and how corporations have come to have such a large voice in our democracy. One of the recipients of an award being named after her skipped giving a speech altogether and instead just told the students: “Give ‘em hell.”

For months now, we have been asking Sallie Mae to meet with us to talk about the burden that student debt causes us and our communities. We’ve only heard silence in return.

Now we’re asking Albert Lord, Sallie Mae CEO, to step up and resolve this situation. We need to talk.

Hundreds of students marched to their DC office last October, only to be met by security and police officers. Rather than meet with the students, Sallie Mae employees were escorted out the backdoor by police as they looked at the ground rather than the students drowning in debt.