ConnPIRG at UConn Hartford

Passing the largest student financial aid law in history.
In March, President Obama signed the largest student loan bill in history into law. The new law increases financial aid for students by $36 billion, and it won't cost taxpayers a dime because it's funded by cutting wasteful hand-outs to banks and loan companies like Sallie Mae and Citibank. Across the country 10,000 of you called, wrote, emailed, and tweeted your Congressmen asking them to take action. In addition, our DC staff worked tirelessly to bring your message to legislators and their staff.

Here at the University of Connecticut we collected hundreds of entries for our student debt yearbook. The student debt yearbook includes information about how much debt students at UConn have accumulated, and we take it to all our meeting with our elected officials to show them how student debt impacts students in Connecticut.

Stopping the worst unfair practices by credit companies.
In February the Credit CARD Act went into effect. This law protects students and ends some of the worst unfair practices of credit card companies, making it illegal for credit card companies to profit by tricking people into paying late. It was the outcry of students like you that passed this law, and the banks aren't happy about it - this is the first time in 40 years any law opposed by credit card companies has passed.

Here at UConn we held a press conference to educate the student body and general public about the Credit Card Act of 2009.

Reforming the health care system in order to make health care affordable.
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the insurance industry to stop reform, health insurance reform became law. Our priority has been to make health care affordable. This law takes unprecedented steps to lower costs for families and small businesses, and it prohibits insurers from using pre-existing conditions, errors on forms, and lifetime or yearly caps to drop your coverage or price it out of reach. It also helps young adults – a highly uninsured demographic - by allowing them to stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26.

Building support for global warming solutions.
We're calling on the Senate to build a clean energy economy that will create jobs and enhance America’s national security while protecting the environment. Across the country, we mobilized over 30,000 students and community members to contact their Senators to call for clean, renewable energy and an end to our dependence on oil and coal.  We held events on campus and off to educate thousands of people, resulting in more than 100 news stories about our work.

At UConn we generated hundreds of calls and letters to Senator Lieberman urging him to support Federal Climate Change legislation.

Helping rebuild Haiti, and fighting poverty here at home.
It's been a tough year for many American families, and the earthquake in Haiti has affected millions. Through our annual Hunger Cleanup 40 students from UConn joined  students across the country for a day of service in our communities.

Bringing 21st Century Transportation to America.
From high-speed rail to mass transit, it’s time for 21st century transportation in America.  We’re calling for increased federal funding of transit projects including a proposed high speed rail line that will connect Springfield, MA and New Haven CT, making it easier for us to get around and cut global warming pollution, traffic, and smog.

Last month students from across the state teamed up to bike across Connecticut to build support for high speed rail. Working with students here at UConn as well as students from UConn Storrs and Trinity College we spent our Spring Break letting our politicians know that though the bike ride was nice, we’d rather be riding high speed rail.

Affordable Textbooks.
Open textbooks (free, online textbooks) are really catching on, thanks in part to our campaign to shine the spotlight on these great alternatives. Over 2,000 faculty members have signed our statement of support for open textbooks and a new publisher just released 10 new open textbooks! Also, a new bill was introduced in Congress that would fund the creation of more open textbooks. On campus we have gotten over 20 UConn professors to sign onto our statement of support and commit to considering using open textbooks in their classes.