Fall 2008 Programs

Founded by students in the early 1970’s, OSPIRG is an independent, student-directed and funded student organizations that work to solve public interest problems related to environmental preservation, consumer protection, and government reform.  Today, the OSPIRG network has chapters at five colleges across Oregon, 10 professional organizing and policy staff, and thousands of student volunteers annually.

Our Top Priority: New Voters Project

OSPIRG’s top priority for the fall is the New Voters Project, a non-partisan effort to register young people and get them to the polls on Election Day.  The goal of this project is to increase the number of young voters participating in the 2008 general election.  OSPIRG is a founder and partner of the Oregon Student Vote Coalition, a joint project of the Oregon Student Association and the Building Votes Program of the Bus Project.  OSPIRG volunteers and organizers are working with the Oregon Student Vote Coalition  to register 40,000 young voters and run a person to person Get Out the Vote campaign to make sure they submit in their ballots..  OSPIRG has launched jointly with other Student PIRGs and partners a new website: www.studentvote.org where students can fill out a voter registration form online and has developed a state of the art Toolkit, that student organizers and administrators can use to run vote programs on their campuses. www.newvotersproject.org

In addition to the New Voters Project, OSPIRG is running a number of other programs around global warming, college affordability, transportation, health care, hunger and homelessness, and student debt.

Cutting Healthcare Costs

One-quarter of all Oregonians, including 100,000 children, have inadequate or no health insurance Everyone else is stuck with big premiums that still come with deductibles and expensive prescriptions drugs.  So OSPIRG student chapters are running a campaign to influence the appointed Oregon Health Fund Board, which is charged with coming up with a plan for making sure all Oregonians have access to quality, affordable health care, through testimony, public comments, and letters. www.ospirgstudents.org/health-care

Stopping Global Warming

Young people are typically more concerned than the average American about global warming and on college campuses in particular, global warming has emerged as one of the top issues for campus activists.  Yet most young people - even the campus activists themselves - do not understand the policy solutions to global warming, nor the government’s critical role in implementing these solutions. No matter who is elected to Congress and the Presidency, Global Warming will be one of the major issues up for debate in 2009.  So this fall, OSPIRG is bringing together campus activists and encouraging them to interact directly with the country’s leading policy experts and political strategists. www.ospirgstudents.org/campus-climate-challenge/in-depth

Making Textbooks Affordable

Everyone knows that textbooks are expensive.  Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks and course materials, which is about a quarter of the cost of tuition at a typical public university and nearly three-quarters of the cost of tuition at a community college.  And costs are only going up - textbook prices have increased four times the rate of inflation since 1994!  With tuition at an all time high, more and more students struggle to pay for college.  Textbooks are a significant portion of college costs, and could be the “tipping point” between going to college and not being able to afford it.  OSPIRG is running a campaign that reveals the flaws of the textbooks market to the general public and provides students and professors more choices in choosing textbooks.  Higher education is essential to our future, and textbooks should not make it even harder to afford! www.maketextbooksaffordable.org

Renters Handbook

This fall, OSPIRG is issuing the 10th Edition of the OSPIRG Renters Handbook.  The Renters Handbook, an OSPIRG service for over thirty years, is a comprehensive, lawyer-reviewed guide to help renters find places to live, negotiate fair leases and deal with problems that arise with landlords.  The 10th Edition includes a forward from John Kroger, Lewis and Clark Law Professor.  www.ospirgstudents.org/renter

Telling The Truth About Credit

In October 2007, OSPIRG and the other Student PIRGs jointly launched Truth About Credit, a campaign that aims to rein in the credit card industry's aggressive marketing tactics on college campuses.  When tempted by “freebies,” students often won't look at the terms and conditions on a credit card before applying.  Thirty-nine PIRG chapters launched the campaign with an ironic student education campaign called FEESA -- "Free Gifts Now, Huge Fees Later" -- to warn students about credit cards and to solicit their support for principles for responsible credit card marketing at the school.  PIRG student activists handed out lollipops stamped with the words “Don't Be A Sucker” and thousands of educational booklets about credit cards.  Building off of that support, student volunteers are now meeting with college administrators to tighten up the rules and regulations around credit card marketing at the campus.  For example, students with OSPIRG at Southern Oregon University were able to convince their campus administration to set up a task force to investigate credit card abuses at the school. www.truthaboutcredit.org

Fighting Hunger and Homelessness

Last year, the national poverty rate rose to include 35.9 million Americans, 12.5 percent of the population. More than 36 million people were at risk of suffering from hunger in the United States, including 1 in 3 children. In addition, 3.5 million people were forced to sleep in parks, under bridges, in shelter or cars. OSPIRG’s National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness is committed to ending hunger and homelessness in America by educating, engaging, and training students to directly meet individuals' immediate needs while advocating for long-term systemic solutions.  The campaign works with 600 college campuses and high schools, promoting a range of programs, providing ongoing phone, email and on-site training, and organizing two annual conferences that draw more than 600 student poverty activists from around the country. www.studentsagainsthunger.org

State and Local Campaigns

In addition to these important initiatives, the OSPIRG network of student activists and organizers are also working on numerous state and local issues.  For example, OSPIRG’s University of Oregon chapter partnered with Campus Recycling to build student support for a pilot composting program designed to reduce the university’s waste and save the school money.  The effort helped persuade the administration and the student government to jointly fund the program for the 2009 academic year.