Campus Progress

We've had some site issues with FM as well as most of the FM writers traveling this week so apologies for our lapse in bringing you the essential news.

• The fight to save the 40 year old practice of Election Day Registration in Maine continues with its campaign to garner enough signatures to get The People's Veto on the ballot.
• This week's Campus Progress annual conference brought former President Bill Clinton to speak to attendees. The BigDog warned young people that their right to vote is increasingly being challenged by conservative Governors and state legislatures across the country who are threatened by the enthusiasm of young voters and our increasing ability to move elections. Watch the full speech here at CSPAN
• Oddly enough these same republicans are trying to recruit more young people to opposing the President and join their oh so welcoming and positive message against the government.
• Funding cuts might be coming to vocational training for young people according to a piece that follows a young man who was an at-risk high school student but his counselor found he excelled at hands on skills based classes. He now talks about getting his bachelors in engineering and starting his own business.
  

  "Now, federal funding to provide such vocational and technical education is at risk. President Obama has instead made it a priority to raise overall academic standards and college graduation rates, and aims to shrink the small amount of federal spending for vocational training in public high schools and community colleges. That aid comes primarily in the form of Perkins grants to states.

  The administration has proposed a 20-percent reduction in its fiscal 2012 budget for career and technical education, to a little more than $1 billion, even as it seeks to increase overall education funding by 11 percent."

  We all have to make sacrifices in these tough economic times. I mean unless of course you're the top 2% of wage earners in the US. You don't have to make sacrifices - we'll give you a tax cut.

• More depressing higher ed news - the likely incoming president of Cal State San Diego is getting a $100k salary bump from the previous university president, bringing his take home dollar a whopping $400,000 a year. In a totally unrelated story - CSU is slated for one of the steepest tuition increasesin the country, with a 12% hike - the 10th increase in a decade.
• Don't have a job? Well falling back in a US Military job may no longer be an option according to this CNN report. "The Army and Marine Corps are getting smaller, and now there's a nearly year-long waiting list just to get into boot camp, no matter which branch you want to join."
• Having a hard time with the student loans? Here are five tips to getting a handle on your student debt. Some good pointers.
• Last week was the President's Twitter Townhall where he was asked about giving incentives to companies hiring honorably discharged veterans. He said it was certainly something they were talking about in the West Wing in large part because the level of unemployment is higher among young veterans than non-veterans.
  

  "It reported that in May 2011, veterans from the post-9/11 period had an unemployment rate of 12.1 percent. By comparison, non-veterans that month had an 8.5 percent unemployment rate."



• In the Dalai Lama's latest trip to the US he spoke and answered questions from Buddhists and young Americans who sat on the Capitol lawn in Washington DC this weekend. In his address he said two notable things that encouraged the young crowd:

  1. "Oh yes, things are always changing," the Dalai Lama said to an eruption of cheers from a crowd ranging from fellow Buddhist monks to young Americans lying on the grass on a hot summer morning.

     "Certainly, I think the voice of freedom, democracy, rule of law, more and more voice(s are) now coming," the Dalai Lama said in English, noting that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao himself has called for political reforms in recent years.

     "So things will certainly change," he said. "Not only (in the) Chinese case, but the whole world, things are changing."

  2. The Dalai Lama did not speak about the Karmapa but, responding to a question from a 14-year-old, urged young people to be "warm-hearted" and to turn the page on the bloodshed of the 20th century.

     "My century is gone. The people who brought the 20th century are now ready to say goodbye," the Dalai Lama said.

     "Young people -- you are the people who really make the new shape of this century," he said. "You should have vision and determination and willpower."

• In the millennial marketing world a story about the gourmet nature of young people who have high standards for food. If you read my post about the recent survey on millennial marketing you know that restaurants are where young people love to spend their time and their money.
• Aviva - the sixth largest insurance group might be trying to woo young people with its do-gooder marketing tool on Facebook by asking users to donate their status to one of four youth-focused charities that is in the running for the company's $100,000 grant. Interesting - their facebook looks like a cause based FB ... with little mention of anything insurance related.
• In the past few weeks since Google launched its new social network Google+ the online world has spent a lot of time comparing it to Facebook and Twitter and talking about its potential for successes and challenges. Notably the marketing world has discerned that success depends largely on Google+'s ability to capture the enthusiasm of younger generations.
• As if Google+ isn't enough The Google is also working to lure great thinkers of our generation with its Young Minds Contest
• More in social media news: I'm sure you've heard it before - that young people share way too much information on social networks. That these "over shares" can hurt you from getting jobs, and Sen. Jay Rockafeller event went so far as to say young people have no "social values." Funny.... As it turns out, older Americans are just as bad as young people when it comes to sharing their information on Facebook. What do ya know...



• The food and farm report details info about young dairy farmers. I actually have a friend who's been talking about doing a dairy farm. And given the report above about the youth attraction to more gourmet foods if you make fancy cheeses then... hey you might have something! Perhaps, this is the reason that there is said to be "promise" for rural Wisconsin youth.
• And the final story for the day is consistent with my appreciation for graffiti art. An artist in New Zeland has teamed up with local police to paint walls encouraging young people to consider joining the police force. Great public marketing tool - and sick art.

Dalai Lama photo curtsey of the AFP/Ghetty credit to Mark Wilson

Campus Progress is planning an upcoming campaign training event, How to Win in 2010: Mobilizing Young Voters, taking place on June 21st at the Center for American Progress. This nonpartisan day of trainings, which is being co-sponsored by , the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, and the American University Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, will focus on equipping campaign staff, candidates and members of the media with tools to help them effectively engage, utilize, and turn out young voters. Campus Progress has a number of great speakers lined up so far, including Steve Hildebrand (former Obama for America Deputy Campaign Manager), Karen Hicks, and trainers from Rock the Vote, PEW, the Fair Elections Legal Network, and many other organizations.

The training day is free, and limited travel and housing scholarships are also available. You can find more information and register on the Campus Progress website: www.campusprogress.org/WinIn2010.
If you have any questions, you can email Katie Andriulli at kandriulli at americanprogress dot org.

Thanks to our friends at Campus Progress for posting this great comic.

The 6th Annual Campus Progress National Conference is coming up on July 7 and 8 in Washington, DC. The two-day will be attended by more than 1,200 young people from across the country.

Day 1 - Wednesday, July 7: See inspiring speeches, panels, performances, and take part in interactive discussions.

Day 2 - Thursday, July 8: Learn how to make your voice heard in your community and in the media and have the opportunity to engage Senate offices on issues that matter to you.

Space at the conference is limited, as are travel and housing scholarships, so you should apply as soon as possible if you are interested.

You can apply online at the Campus Progress website.

After Craig's piece on youth unemployment this piece in the NYTimes struck me as interesting.

With unemployment on the rise the one thing that is also on the rise is internships for young people seeking experience but not getting paid for it. There is a fine line between unpaid internship and free labor. I'll admit I did unpaid internships while in college full time and working part time and many of the innovative online experiments I run in campaigns I am only able to do with the support of a staff of unpaid internships because campaigns don't want to pay their staff to try new things. So I rely very heavily on interns both for support staff and for new and sometimes crazy ideas.

The difference is that when I was an intern it eventually lead to a full time paid position, and when it comes time to hire staff on campaigns - all of the campaigns I work with offer positions to existing interns before we look outside the campaign. Plus, we ensure that our interns are getting some kind of credit for classes or at the very least it can go on their resume.

According to the piece in the NYTimes

"Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer."

Campus Progress, Demos, and the Economic Policy Institute had a panel at the end of March to address the problem with unpaid internships. Their email announcing it read:

"Internships, once a rare bonus for students, have become a standard component of a college graduate's resume. Despite their near universality and their necessity for students entering the job market, the majority of internships at non-profits and in government are unpaid, putting many low- and middle-income students at a considerable disadvantage."

The groups have crafted a new legislative proposal to allow for some source of funding for low-income students who are seeking high quality public service internships that are often times unpaid. The proposal Paving the Way through Paid Internships: A Proposal to Expand Educational Opportunities for Low-Income College Students, says, among other things

"Considering the importance of internships when it comes to finding a full-time job after graduation, it is startling to see the large number of internships that go unpaid, tilting the scale in favor of students higher on the economic ladder," said researchers Kathryn Edwards and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, who developed the proposal..."

In an email to supporters, Demos says that internships are a requirement now more than ever with 84% of college students in four-year schools doing at least one of them before they graduate.

"Internships also provide an important foot in the door; 76.3% of employers report internships as the primary factor when deciding whether to hire recent graduates."

This makes it even more troubling for students who have a hard time going to school to begin with. So, basically, we make it hard for students to afford college, but now college isn't enough because.. hell... everyone has a BA now. Everyone was the president of some club or makes decent grades so internships are used to get that extra edge. But if you have to work full or part time and go to school when the hell do you have time for an internship? Its impossible, particularly internships that are a public service internships that aren't available at a distance and most times must be between 9-5.

Demos goes on to say low income students find it even harder to take internships away from home because they have to pay higher cost of housing or would have to leave their part-time jobs for a summer. So internships in the city where they would like to live after graduation are simply beyond their reach.

"With college costs drastically increasing and financial supports decreasing over the past 25 years, it has become more and more difficult for our nation's low-income young adults to access and complete college, perpetuating economic and racial inequalities and threatening our ability to compete with other highly educated nations in the 21st century global economy," said Nancy K. Cauthen, Director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos. "Internships are key to securing meaningful employment, and making them inaccessible to low-income students only further preserves existing inequalities by impeding the ability of these students to obtain a decent job and enter the middle-class. Policymakers need to take action to ensure that all students can access internship experiences. . .

"The cost of completing an unpaid internship is often too high for students without ample family financial resources, but the cost of not completing one can reduce students' future employment opportunities," said Edwards and Hertel-Fernandez. "This inequality ultimately reduces diversity in government hiring, making our democracy less vibrant."

This is a good first start - the Demos proposal and the crackdown on employers exploiting young people. In the end I think this is part of a larger problem with youth unemployment. As Craig said in his piece "One way to assist these young people is by passing legislation with comprehensive youth programs and public works projects included."

Another is to think more about long-term. As I said in a piece that covered the stimulus impacts on youth "this is kind of like putting a tourniquet on to stop the bleeding. You take it off and you're still going to bleed to death. We need an operation that will stop it long-term."

This afternoon at lunch Campus Progress is hosting a great panel discussion in Washington DC where they will discuss the state of our system of higher education and the burdening costs that young people are shouldered with when they graduate.

According to the release

"On the heels of student protests in California against 32% tuition hikes, college affordability is making headlines again, and the timing could not be more critical as landmark college affordability reform legislation awaits action in the Senate. This Wednesday, Campus Progress, the United States Student Association and USPIRG will host a panel discussion examining the implications of the controversy in California, and looking ahead at efforts to make college more affordable and accessible on the institutional, state, and federal levels. The panel will feature: Congressman Tim Bishop, Bruce Cain from the UC System, Victor Sanchez from the UC Student Assoc, Angus Johnston of studentactivism.net, Pedro de la Torre III from Campus Progress, and moderated by Erica Williams from CP."

Tuesday, Demos and the United States Student Association released findings about students and private loans

"Yet with tuition skyrocketing and entry-level jobs flat-lining, students are borrowing more and more against their futures to pay for school. A startling 67 percent of the U.S. bachelor’s degree graduates last year had student debt, averaging about $23,200 per indebted student. While most of that debt is in safe, lower-interest federal loans, a significant amount is in private loans that can carry interest rates of over 18 percent.

"In fact, due to aggressive marketing, nearly 3 million American students took out private loans last year, up from less than 1 million just four years before. Since federal loans are lower interest and have more borrower protections, taking out unnecessary private loans for college is like putting tuition on a high-interest credit card that students can’t pay off for years. And like credit cards, private loans carry costly penalties and fees and are marketed heavily to students regardless of need, resulting in unnecessary and damaging levels of expensive debt. Unfortunately, unlike with credit cards, there has been no “Credit Card Holder’s Bill of Rights” for student loans to reign in the worst abuses in the private loan market."

The briefing paper recommends the Consumer Federal Protection Agency actually regulate private loan companies and ensure protections for youth who have to navigate paperwork etc.. They also call for a close to the loophole in the House CFPA bill that could allow some colleges (the ones that are more focused on profit) to "make private loans to students without abiding by the CFPA’s consumer protections."

I reported a few weeks ago about the extent to which students who attend these schools often graduate with the most harmful of loans and graduate without the necessary skills to take part in their career path of choice.

The briefing paper references some main abuses in the private loan market and the connection they have to the "for profit" school industry.

• "Unnecessary Loans: Any student with access to the full information should only buy a more expensive private loan after reaching the maximum federal loan amount first. However, full information is increasingly the exception, and not the rule. Last year, almost 2 out of every 3 private loan borrowers did not reach the Stafford limit before taking out a costlier private loan; 26 percent took out no Stafford loans at all.
• Outrageous Rates: Unlike federal loans, most private loans have no upper limit on their interest rates. As a result, private student lenders charge annual percentage rates (APR) as high as 18 percent—nearly three times the average federal loan APR and twice as high as the federal cap on student loans.
• Rate Floors, Not Ceilings: During the recession, the federal government has lowered interest rates to make money cheaper for lenders—but the savings have not flowed through to millions of private loan borrowers. That’s because instead of ceilings, many private loans have rate “floors” guaranteeing that the borrower’s interest rate stays high. The resulting spread that lenders are pocketing is as high as 12.5 percent.
• High Fees: There are no legal limits on the fees private lenders can charge students. Eighty-five percent of lenders charge origination fees just to make the loan, averaging 4.5 percent of the loan amount—but with some as high as 9.9 percent.
• In-School Interest: With federally-subsidized loans, the government pays the interest while the student is in school and not making payments. Private lenders start running the clock from the moment of origination. The difference is significance; a college freshmen who takes out a private loan for $1,500 at the start of the year will owe $2,945 on that loan alone the day he or she graduates.
• Aggressive Marketing at For-Profit Schools: While only 9 percent of undergraduates attend for-profit schools, these students make up 27 percent of private loan borrowers."

The most interesting turn of events is that the progressive community isn't the only one that has noticed this. The Family Research Council (The Christian organization promoting the traditional family unit and the Judeo-Christian value system upon which it is built) has announced that they are having a lecture with Tony Perkins where he will discuss the "Crushing Burden Of Student Loans On Family Formation For Generation X+." Apparently because young people (both Gen X and Gen Y) are so overburdened with student loans and financial responsibilities they are having a rough time starting families to make more little Family Research Council people, the Family Research Council has decided to discuss the importance of taking action now.

Its nice that solving the student loan crisis is an issue that every part of the political spectrum can get behind.

Campus Progress has started the daunting task of taking on major banks and loan companies that pray on the financial confusion and lack of experience of college students hoping to pay for their classes.

After Sallie Mae began buying up ad space in Politico, Campus Progress also put a full page ad featuring a letter that 50 groups signed in favor of reform.

According to the release from CP

"So far, Sallie Mae alone has spent $3,052,000 on lobbying this year, and has already contributed $125,500 to federal candidates for the 2010 cycle (opensecrets.org). By our estimates, at least a quarter million on ads in Politico and other DC are newspapers. Lenders (we are not yet sure who) have also hired Qorvis communications, a controversial PR firm, to astroturf on the issue (http://protectstudentchoice.org). Apparently, Qorvis sees this as one of their their specialties (http://bit.ly/4yQ3es) - they have been talking to the industry about astroturfing since at least 2007 (http://bit.ly/4yQ3es). Some lenders, like Citi, have even emailed their borrowers and urged them to take action against reform, without, of course, letting them know that it could mean an investment in student aid, early learning, community colleges, etc. (http://bit.ly/42Koh2)."

Erica Williams, the Deputy Director at Campus Progress, has a great piece up at CP's blog on economic investment, Funding Our Future. Williams uses CNN's recent poll showing youth to be the strongest supporters of the president's health care plan to point out some problems youth have encountered in trying to engage in dialogue surrounding this process.

Williams explains what many youth who vocally support the President's plan for health reform probably feel. As Williams and others advocate for the plan, engaging other, older Americans in intelligent discussion as to why its needed and why the scare tactics are nothing more than symbols of fear from an entrenched systemic oppressor, we are met with annoyance and condescension.

...Nevertheless, every day I try new responses to those that ignorantly assume I don’t care about health care reform because I’m under 30 and supposedly invincible.

I could tell them that health care reform is my fight because my partner, 25 years old, is an entrepreneur, consultant, and all around brilliant guy who cares more about professional fulfillment than financial gain and has thus been without insurance for 3 years. I’ve cried myself to sleep many a night over his lack of coverage, terrified that at any moment, an illness or accident could push us into financial ruin in the beginning stages of our life together.

I could tell them that health care reform is my fight because 60% of my friends (yes, I did the math…) have lost their jobs in the past 6 months and don’t go to the doctor. Or that my godmother died of cancer with health insurance that wouldn’t cover her treatment.

I could say that a young friend of mine is afraid to get a test that would tell whether or not he has a congenital heart disease because he is worried that he will forevermore have a pre-existing condition.

I could also tell you that in addition to being young, I’m a woman of color and that for my demographic in particular, health care is a life or death issue.

Chalk up our not being invincible as another one of those inconvenient truths. Young people make up 30 percent of the uninsured in this country, while only consisting of 15 percent of the population.

But Erica's right in that it's not all about numbers. We're invested in this debate not based on whether or not we're wholly or partially impacted by the mess our elders have created with the inefficient health care system. We're in it because it's simply wrong. It's an injustice. King's oft-quoted declaration of injustice anywhere serving as a threat to justice everywhere applies here.

As the future of this country, we most definitely have a place at the table for this discussion. It shouldn't be diminished. It shouldn't be taken away. It should be validated, because odds are, we're going to have to be the ones to clean up this mess.

Campus Progress has been busy today! They released their video about the DREAM Act

And a great piece on the Huffington Post by Erica Williams about Health Care being THE issue for youth.

"CNN's poll released yesterday shows a striking generational divide over support of Obama's health care plan, with the reform being significantly more popular among young people than among adults over the age of 50. Nevertheless, every day I try new responses to those that ignorantly assume I don't care about health care reform because I'm under 30 and supposedly invincible.

I could tell them that health care reform is my fight because my partner, 25 years old, is an entrepreneur, consultant, and all around brilliant guy who cares more about professional fulfillment than financial gain and has thus been without insurance for 3 years. I've cried myself to sleep many a night over his lack of coverage, terrified that at any moment, an illness or accident could push us into financial ruin in the beginning stages of our life together.

I could tell them that health care reform is my fight because 60% of my friends (yes, I did the math...) have lost their jobs in the past 6 months and don't go to the doctor. Or that my godmother died of cancer with health insurance that wouldn't cover her treatment."

Read the whole thing if you have a moment, its a great piece that perfectly captures the plight young people face with a lack of affordable health care. Its much more accurate than the NYTimes narrative about the "Invincible Generation."

Cassandra Leveille wrote a nice piece that was published the other day on Campus Progress's site. The piece focused on the link between declining health among low-income neighborhoods and the lack of healthy and organic foods available in those areas.

Leveille explains throughout the piece that, whereas many supermarkets carrying the fresh produce -- the most nutritious food in the store -- are exclusively located in suburbs thanks to the white flight of the 1960s and 1970s, those trapped in poverty in urban areas are forced to rely on convenience stores overflowing with fatty, over-processed alternatives. And because of their lack of resources, many impoverished shoppers are trapped in the cycle of buying these foods, because it is the only option (other than simply not eating). In other words, living paycheck to paycheck usually means a diet of frozen dinners, Twinkies, and dollar menus at fast food joints for youth.

Leveille examines the roots of the problem from a policy perspective:

For many, the Obama administration offers hope for changing the massive amount of unhealthy foods Americans are exposed to. However, our current food agenda is largely out of Obama’s hands, by policy set forth in the 2007 Farm Bill.

The Farm Bill legislation is amended every five years and largely determines what products are available for Americans on a mass scale. The original farm bills produced during the Great Depression paid farmers to not overproduce their crops, but the current farm bills promote overproduction of subsidized foods, such as corn. The five foods that receive the highest subsidies are soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton and rice. These products appear in abundance on our supermarket shelves, often in the form of highly processed foods.

A piece in The American Prospect commented on the 2007 version of the Farm Bill, particularly the ramifications of overproducing the main five crops cited by Leveille -- not just leading to a lack of diversity in food choices, but threatening the small farmers who simply can't compete with the extremely low prices caused by overproduction.

Subsidies are marketed as an important protection for America's food-production system and a necessary support for hard-working farmers who maintain our rural heritage. But most beneficiaries are not part of that pastoral tradition, and artificially low prices have devastated many small farmers. Since 1948 the number of farms has dropped from 5.8 to 2.1 million, and the number of farmers who actually benefit from subsidies is even smaller -- a mere ten percent of farms receive 74 percent of the subsidies. Smaller farms do receive some money, but it's hardly on par with what becomes agribusiness profit. In many ways, this consolidation is caused by the very subsidies that claim to protect the traditional farmer.

Furthermore, only five crops (corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice) receive more than 90 percent of the allotted funds. And because the subsidies are crop-specific, crop diversity decreases. Banks are less inclined to lend to farmers who want to plant non-subsidized crops, as there's no guaranteed return. Thus, more farmers plant more corn or soy, which escalates overproduction and reduces the safeguards that a diverse crop load provides.

Leveille's piece does a good job of pulling together the economics, public health issues, and agriculture policy involved in this matter. Leveille suggests a combination of new zoning laws, which serve to keep unhealthy fast food options out of low-income neighborhoods (already either being pursued or passed by city governments in New York and Los Angeles) with improved agriculture policy, which subsidizes more fruit and vegetables over the traditional crops listed above. Certainly the big five will continue to be the most popular, but I agree with Leveille that policy should create more of a demand for produce than it currently does. I endorse all of these actions.

However, our responsibilities don't stop there. Our youth are being poisoned thanks to the policies we have set forth. School lunches are little more than the "drunk food" on which many college students snack -- chicken nuggets, french fries, etc. In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, explains why:

But [Vilsack] has a mission to make “nutrition” the watchword of the nutrition programs in the Department of Agriculture: School Lunch, Food Stamps, WIC. Now, that sounds kind of “duh,” but, in fact, those programs have nothing to do with nutrition right now. They’re essentially ways to dispose of agricultural surpluses. So if they actually raise the nutrition standards and make that the focus—

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, they’re the way to—

MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, the reason we have a School Lunch Program, you know, it began as an effort really to get rid of this incredible overproduction of American agriculture. I mean, we’re using our children as a disposal for excess, you know, cheap ground beef and cheese and all these corn products, and that the—you know, under the School Lunch Program, we feed our kids chicken nuggets and tater tots in school. We’re using the School Lunch Program to teach them how to become fast-food consumers. So, it’s not about health, and it needs to be about health. So, if he can move that program in that direction, I think that will be wonderful.

So after the adjusted subsidies that Leveille advocates produce more fruits and vegetables, we should be getting those into the School Lunch program and avoiding the stale, corn-laden taco shell filled with the 20/80 ground beef most kids are eating. Perhaps we should also manufacture some creative signage to place on our cafeteria's serveries that inform students in an understandable, fun way what they are eating.

Food is such an important part of the lives of young people. Of course, they need it to survive in the short-term, but it also forms the foundation of many of their daily schedules. The importance of nutrition, then, should be that much more apparent. In addition to doing a better job of educating our students on the foods/drinks they eat, we should also be keeping an eye on agriculture/food policy which is the driving force for many of our public health and economic problems today. While it would seem that those worse off would be afforded more of the resources needed to get to a better place instead of less, that's not what's happening now. As DeNeen Brown put it in a story for the Post earlier this month on the poor, "You have to be rich to be poor." It's up to us to change that.