Making Higher Education Affordable
In March 2010, President Obama signed into law the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which invests in financial aid by ending sweetheart deals to big banks and loan companies. It infuses $36 billion into the financially strapped Pell grant program, benefiting 8 million students. It also improves the Income Based Repayment program, benefiting 1 million borrowers by capping repayment at no more than ten percent of their salary and allowing for loan forgiveness after 20 years. The bill also cut $60 billion in subsidies for banks and lenders to pay for college affordability measures. Iowa PIRG Student Chapters and Student PIRG lobbying and organizing over the past several years was critical to the passage of this historic law.

Global Warming Solutions
Iowa PIRG students have joined together with PIRG students in other states in educating the country about the solutions we have to global warming and building support for local, state and national policies that will put those solutions into practice. In Spring 2010, we mobilized over 30,000 students and community members nationally to call for clean, renewable energy and an end to our dependence on oil and coal. We held events on and off campus to educate thousands of people, resulting in more than 100 news stories about our work.

New Voters Project
Launched more than 25 years ago, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project has helped to register more than 700,000 voters and make more than a million personalized voting reminders since 2004, making it the nation’s largest nonpartisan grassroots mobilization effort targeting young voters. During that period, young voter turnout has consistently increased, rising from 36% in 2000 to more than 52% in 2008.

The 2008 election saw young voter turnout surge by at least 2.2 million votes over 2004 levels. Students involved with the New Voters Project played a big role in the impressive turnout of students in this historic election. On 100 campuses in 17 states, the Student PIRGs' New Voters Project combined old-fashioned pavement pounding with cutting-edge technology to reach young voters.

In Iowa youth voter turn out increased across the state. The week before the voter registration deadline students working with Iowa PIRG's New Voters Project helped register almost 2000 students at Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. In the days leading up to the election students made more than 20,000 get-out-the-vote contacts, reminding students to vote and answering any questions they had on where to vote. To kick off the campaign Michael M. Mauro, Iowa Secretary of State, spoke at a statewide press conference. Secretary Mauro also endorsed New Voters Project in the spring of 2008.

The CARD Act
In February 2010, the “Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act” went into effect. The Student PIRGs and Iowa PIRG students helped pass this strong legislation, which ends some of the worst abuses of the credit card industry, including some which are often targeted at college students. The CARD Act eliminates excessive penalty fees, unfair billing practices, and unjustified and retroactive interest charges. It also restricts and requires greater transparency for marketing targeted exclusively at college campuses or consumers under the age of 21. Despite the credit card industry's lobbying to defeat the bill, the Senate and the House both passed it with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.

Making Health Care Work
In March 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. This law takes unprecedented steps to lower costs for families and small businesses and prohibits insurers from using pre-existing conditions, errors on forms, and lifetime or yearly caps to drop patient 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.

Truth About Credit 
Since 2007, Iowa PIRG students and USPIRG have been running the Truth About Credit campaign to expose dangerous credit card practices and clean them up.  We organized “FEESA” educational tables on colleges nationwide, where we acted like credit card marketers but instead promoted principles for responsible credit card marketing on campus.  In 2008, we also surveyed over 2,000 students and released a subsequent report, “The Campus Credit Card Trap,” which garnered nationwide media coverage. 

Student Debt Alert
Our Student Debt Alert campaign raises awareness about the growing problem of student debt and calls for solutions. Through the campaign, over five thousand students posted their photos and stories on the Student Debt Yearbook, to illustrate to decision makers the importance of financial aid programs. Hundreds of additional students sent testimony to the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education urging them to address student debt issues.

Affordable Textbooks
The Student PIRGs along with Iowa PIRG students have been leading the charge to make textbooks affordable. We have been building support for “open textbooks” – books that are available to students for free – and signed on over 2,000 college professors who support using open textbooks in their classes. In August 2008, we helped get an Affordable Textbooks provision included in the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act. The provision helps lower the cost of textbooks for millions of students by requiring publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty and requiring publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials "unbundled." It also asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks, including prices, for each course when students are registering for classes.

Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness
Students in Iowa joined together with thousands of students on campuses across the country through our annual Hunger Cleanup each April to raise money and volunteer in a day of service in their communities. Since students started this annual tradition in 1984, more than 150,000 have volunteered and their combined efforts have raised over $2 million.  This year, in addition to local charities, students donated funds to relief projects in Haiti.  In November 2009, we launched the Resolve Conference, where 250 students were joined by activists, advocates and organizers for a weekend of education and training to create anti-poverty campaigns in their communities.  Coming out of the conference, participants joined hundreds of campuses holding educational and service events during the annual Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.

21st Century Transportation
We’re building support for 21st century transportation in America, including high-speed rail and more and better mass transit. In 2009, Student PIRG activists mobilized their peers and helped persuade Congress to include an additional $2.5 billion down-payment for high-speed rail in their appropriations bill, more than doubling President Obama’s original recommendation. In California, CALPIRG students led the field campaign in 2008 that passed Prop 1A, an initiative to build a high-speed rail line connecting California’s major cities.