Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act

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)."