Led by Rep. John Kline (R-MN), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, the legislation would allow interest rates to fluctuate based on economic factors, which opponents say could subject borrowers to changes in the market that could be disastrous over time.

"Our families deserve better than this bait-and-switch," Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said, pushing back on the bill.

The bill would "base interest rates for all new federal student loans on the bond market, using the same 10-year Treasury note benchmark that has been proposed by the Obama administration."  If the bond market fluctuates, the bill could turn a greater profit from Stafford loans than the program already makes—meaning borrowers would pay more.

Federal student loan programs already make billions of dollars in profit each year for the United States government. This year, the Obama administration is expected reap $51 billion in profit from student loan borrowers.

"When I went to a state flagship university with government funding for my tuition, I felt valued by my government," Rep. Susan David (D-CA) said during a hearing on the bill. "I don't think our students will feel that way with this bill."

President Obama's budget also included a change to Stafford that would tie rates to the market; however, Obama's budget did not include a cap to prevent rates from soaring too high. The House Republican plan does have a ceiling for the subsidized Stafford loan rate: 8.5 percent. Parent and graduate student loans would be capped at 10.5 percent.

However, the cap may be too high for many students and families.

Using the Congressional Budgetary Office projections for Treasury notes' interest rates each year, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay:

• $8,331 in interest under the House/Kline plan
• $7,284 if rates are allowed to double on July 1
• $3,450 if rates stay the sameover the typical 10 year window to pay the maximum $19,000

Students who rely on both subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans to finance their education would also see a hike in interest payments with the House Republican plan. If subsidized Stafford interest rates double to match their unsubsidized counterpart, this is how they'd be impacted:

• $12,374 in interest under the House/Kline plan
• $10,867 if subsidized loans were allowed to double on July 1
• $7,033 if rates stay the same over the typical 10 year window to play the maximum $27,000 for four years of school.

In support of the bill, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said: "Student loan rates should not be subject to the whims of Congress. Students' families and taxpayers deserve a long-term solution. … This legislation offers predictability and simplicity."

Foxx is the same representative who said last year that she had "little tolerance" for Americans who graduate with thousands of dollars of student loan debt.

Some Senate Democrats want to prevent the interest rate on Stafford from doubling—keeping it at the current 3.4 percent—until a long-term solution can be reached. A more radical approach, proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would give students the "same deal" on Stafford interest rates that big banks get from the Federal Reserve.

Gillibrand introduced the proposal during a press conference in New York City on Sunday. Her legislation would allow borrowers with federal loans carrying interest rates higher than 4 percent to refinance down to 4 percent. The majority of federal student loan dollars disbursed this year carry interest rates higher than 6.8 percent, according to the Education Department.

Other types of debt have benefitted from lower interest rates, too: the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 3.5 percent, according to Think Progress.

“At a time when corporations, homeowners, and even local governments are refinancing at historically low interest rates and saving millions of dollars, students and families who take out loans to pay for college are getting left behind," Gillibrand said, according to the Huffington Post, which covered the press conference. "Ensuring that our graduates are not saddled with unmanageable debt by keeping interest rates low is just common sense."

In recent months, experts from various industries have warned of the holistic toll the collective $1.1 trillion in education debt held by borrowers could have on the struggling economy. At a Consumer Financial Protections Bureau hearing held this month, student debt was said to have leaning "domino effect" that could leave neighboring markets that scaffold middle class-living like homes and cars struggling to find its next generation of consumers.

“I hope to one day have a family, buy a house, and pay for my child's education—but with interest rates where they are, I have no ability to save,” Alex Newman, a New York City teacher, said at the press conference with Gillibrand. Newman said he has about $20,000 in federal student loans.

According to the Center for American Progress, our parent organization, Gillibrand's bill would save borrowers about $14.5 billion in the first year, which would inject about $21.7 billion into the U.S. economy.

Gillibrand joins a growing band of Senate Democrats who are paying more attention to student loan interest rates—both in the short and long-term. Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Jack Reed (D-RI) proposed a bill last week that would extend the cap on Stafford loan interest rates for two years to provide some elbow room to deal with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

And Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposed that the Federal Reserve give student loan borrowers the "same deal" they give big banks on interest rates for two years, another effort to give Congress time to pass more meaningful legislation to address the student debt crisis.

Last week, it was reported that the Department of Education will reap a $50 billion profit from education loan borrowers—more than oil giant Exxon Mobil.

"Corporate entities, homeowners, and many others have been able to refinance debt at quite low rates, and student loan borrowers are wondering why they can't do the same," Rohit Chopra, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s top student loan official, previously said in regards to allowing student loan borrowers to refiance.

"Allowing borrowers to refinance their student loans is a critical first step to solving the student debt crisis," Campus Progress Director Anne Johnson said earlier this year, launching the It's Our Interest campaign. "As we start this new campaign, we call on the White House, Congress, and federal agencies to release their own proposals so we can make this happen and bring relief to millions of Americans and their families."

Maybe a student housing cooperative is for you. From 1,300 people in a series of homes at UC-Berkeley, to smaller groups in places like Chicago, Buffalo, and Athens, Ohio, students and other Americans across the country are taking housing into their own hands.

Co-ops are “owned by their members through a group equity or zero equity model” in which students are “members of an organization that collectively owns the property,” according to Morgan Crawford, director of educational programs at North American Students of Cooperation, a group that supports cooperative housing.

"It’s a good alternative to dorm living or the sort of slumlord-style predatory housing market that most students get involved in,” Crawford said.

One of the obvious potential benefits is budgetary.

“Cooperatives aren’t trying to make money off of everyone,” Crawford said. With no surplus needed for a landlord's profits, students in housing co-ops can keep costs down.

Other, perhaps more potent advantages can’t be measured in dollars and cents. If we accept the premise that the typical buyer-seller relationship is inherently undemocratic—for instance, a renter has no control over their housing situation except what is specifically granted to them in their lease—then a co-op offers students greater self-control.

“Instead of students paying large sums of money to live in a dorm where they have no control over what happens, who they live with, how they’re governed, et cetera,” said Crawford, co-ops put students in the driver’s seat.

While the specific methods vary, the idea is that students use a democratic process to set rents, decide what repairs are needed, and figure out who is responsible for which chores. They can even sell their house if they so choose, Crawford said. (But not to cash out—the money would be held by the co-op as part of the zero equity structure.)

Crawford lived in several housing co-ops during his college years, and came away singing their praises. They were “powerful personal experiences in building community, creating the community and the spaces that I want, having ownership over my life and my spaces,” he said.

This post is the first in a series on life in cooperative student housing. Next up: the economic advantages and pitfalls of co-ops.

The Hulu Exclusive show deals with the lives and loves of teens at a high school in East Los Angeles, and its all-Latino team of writers, actors and creators set out to make it a way for teens to get a dose of comprehensive sex education alongside their love triangles.

"East Los High" is something new entirely: it's the first English-language drama explicitly for Latino teens, and it also grew out of partnerships with sexual health organizations and Latino advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, Voto Latino and the California Family Health Council.

The coalition advised the show’s creators about everything from integrating conversations about sexuality into their storylines, to what resources their characters could access, to what a doctor at a Planned Parenthood office should wear.

Katie Elmore Mota, the show’s Executive Producer, spoke to Campus Progress about the show's approach to sex-ed, transmedia and the media theories informing the show’s hybrid mix of entertainment and education.

One of those theories is the Sabido methodology, which is based on the work of Miguel Sabido, a Mexican TV producer in the 1970s who began integrating conversations about things like adult literacy and family planning into his hit "telenovelas" and serial dramas.

It’s a model that blends education and entertainment, and it’s the framework "East Los High’s" producer, Population Media Center, applies to their work.

“[We're] always hiring people locally from the countries that we’re working in or the audiences that we’re targeting, because of course the most authentic and real and compelling stories come from within,” Mota said.

Through a “show not tell” approach to talking about sexuality, young motherhood and growing up, the show “allows the audience to learn vicariously through the characters and their experiences,” Mota continued.

The show’s creators are committed to using "East Los High" as a venue to provide teens with realistic and useful information about sex-ed, both within the show’s story arc's and transmedia extensions.

Those transmedia extensions include video blogs run by characters in the show, extended scene recipes and articles from the East Los High Siren, a student newspaper whose content ranges from gossip columns to serious articles talking about sex-ed.

“We really wanted to make sex-ed and talking about sexuality comfortable, because that’s hugely important to making it healthier and to allowing people to make the best decisions for themselves,” Mota said.

Transmedia also allows the show’s creators to go beyond the immediate action of the plot to show the slower-paced scenes that delve into the complexities of the characters’ experiences.

One extended scene shows a character going to a clinic; one video blog features conversations between a pregnant teen and her cousin in Mexico.

As her pregnancy progresses, these conversations begin to show how complicated her relationship to her child is: On some days, she’s overjoyed and discovering new pieces of information about her unborn child, on others, she’s exhausted and frustrated with continuously navigating the stigma and challenges that come from being a young mother.

In representing young motherhood, the show’s creators worked to strike a delicate balance, one where they give teens the information they need to choose not to become pregnant if that’s not what they want, but also steer clear of shaming young teens who choose to become parents.

“Usually, in entertainment, either there’s nothing hard about teen pregnancy, and it just happens, and everything’s cool, or it’s demonized," said Mota. "There tends to not be this real, a little bit more grounded approach."

WATCH the trailer:

“PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS EMAIL,” the email warned receivers, “OR INFORMATION ABOUT OUR MEETING LOCATION FOR THE FLASH MOB.”

The Gainesville chapter was organizing secretly, just like other chapters around the country, for NWL’s Week of Action. Last week, NWL and Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD) staged protests in cities across the nation, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Gainesville, Fla., demanding that women of all ages have over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.

Judy Etzler was among many women and men who gathered on the first floor of a Shands Hospital parking garage in Gainesville on Friday. Though not a member of NWL, “this one was irresistible,” she said.

For as long as she can remember, Etzler has been a feminist: When she first became a part of the work force, women mainly worked as nurses or secretaries, she said. As an act of personal protest, she refused to learn how to type.

While Etzler offered a clipboard to protesters to sign in on Friday, Kendra Vincent, chair of the Gainesville chapter of NWL, gestured for attention. The crowd gathered around her in a pre-protest huddle.

“Change comes from everyday people,” she said to the 50 gathered. “And look at all these everyday people.”

The crowd applauded, bouncing echoes throughout the garage.

Vincent’s directions were clear: small groups will be assigned something to “shop for” and sent into the store. Once protestors hear the chant begin outside, they will converge on the pharmacy and join in the chant. Vincent will make a small speech. They will place their props—small medication boxes doctored to look like Plan B boxes—on the shelf. Then they will leave, chanting once again.

The fight to allow the morning-after pill, has been long, said Stephanie Seguin, NWL leader and plaintiff in a court case to make emergency contraception available without age restrictions.

Seguin said when she went to France, she saw government workers on bikes passing out condoms and emergency contraception.

In 1999., Plan B One-Step was the first emergency contraception approved for prescription use in the U.S. In 2006, it became available over-the-counter for women 18 and older. In 2009, the Federal Drug Administration lowered the age restriction to 17.

In 2011, the FDA approved Plan B One-Step for all women who can potentially become pregnant, following a review by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. However, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, overruled the FDA’s decision, stating that the research did not contain sufficient data to show that young girls could responsibly use the drug. The age restriction remained for those 17 and older.

In early April, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman issued a court order to make Plan B available over-the-counter to women of all ages, rebuking the secretary's decision. The Obama Administration appealed Korman’s order, but lowered the age restriction to 15.

The NWL chapter leaders directed the women and men to enter a CVS in Gainesville in groups of three. Whitney Mutch, a member of NWL, walked into the store with two other women looking for nail polish.

Over the aisles, many familiar heads were beginning to appear. Over the course of a few minutes, the population of the CVS tripled. Regular customers were unfazed; the neutral, canned music maintained a normal shopping experience—until the chanting began.

“What do we want?”

The people in the store picked up the cue, shouting back, “The morning-after pill.”

“Where do we want it?”

“Over-the-counter.”

Mutch and others collected in front of the pharmacy where Vincent gave a speech explaining their demands.

“I am here to put this morning-after pill on the shelf next to condoms,” Vincent said. “For all men and women to buy.”

Vincent and other protesters placed small boxes made to look like emergency contraception on nearby shelves. Then they promptly exited, chanting: “Old enough to get pregnant, old enough to decide.”

“It was inspiring to see so many people,” Mutch said later, as the group debriefed at the Civic Media Center. “It was fantastic, the feeling of sisterhood.”

This article originally appeared in The Fine Print, a student publication at the University of Florida that receives funding and training as a member of the Campus Progress journalism network.
 

Researchers at the Texas State University School of Criminal Justice analyzed 84 shooting events between 2000 and 2010, and found that the frequency of the events is increasing—and that the leading weapon of mass shooters was the pistol, followed by the rifle and the shotgun.

"In the wake of the tragic active shooter attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, police administrators are struggling both to respond to their citizens’ concerns and to ensure that their departments are prepared should an attack happen in their jurisdictions," reads the report [PDF]. "It is our hope that the information contained here will provide police administrators with the data needed to base their active shooter preparations on empirical evidence."

The data paints a picture of diverse, bloody encounters, with a median of four individuals shot and two deaths per episode.

While some shooters surrender or commit suicide before law enforcement arrive, others engage "aggressively" with the police, with one in five incidents further complicated by taking place in open, outdoor spaces.

Out of the three cases in which armed bystanders ended the confrontation by shooting the attacker, two were by off-duty police officers and one was by a US marine. However, report author J. Pete Blair disputes easy conclusions about the role of bystanders in halting mass shootings.

"While armed civilian intervention has been rare, it has occurred and stopped events," he said. "Arguments can easily be made either way and will primarily be driven from ideological starting points."

Early tracking suggests that mass shootings have continued to increase in frequency since 2010, Blair said.

Mass shootings are still a minor threat compared to other types of shooting deaths.

According to the FBI, mass shootings in 2010 accounted for less than one percent of homicide victims.

The report released by Tufts University found that just 45 percent of individuals between ages 18 and 29 are now believed to have cast ballots, down from an earlier estimate of 50 percent.

The Tufts University Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement revised its previous estimate down by more than five percentage points in response to newly-released census data, challenging dominant narratives about the role of social media and young people in contemporary politics.

"It is hard to make a case that we have entered a positive new era because of generational change, new technology, or the behavior of candidates," said director Peter Levine. "Turnout was higher in battleground states, though, which reinforces the importance of competition."

And if there isn't a generational shit toward robust civic engagement, there's another cause to worry for those vying for the youth vote, as more Millennials age into the electorate.

Spending for conservative youth engagement is outstripping progressive investments, which could help transform narratives that parties on the right are no place for youth.

Researchers based their earlier figure on exit polls and population estimations. The newer, more accurate figure is based on the Census Current Population Survey, which provides a larger, more accurate sample size.

According to the new numbers, President Obama saw a drop of nearly 2.5 million votes between 2008 and 2012.

Though recent electoral cycles saw elevated turnout by young voters, Levine cautions that youth civic participation has showed no clear trend in recent decades.

"The youth turnout decline in 2012 underlines the challenge we face," Levine said. "Turnout rose in 2004 and 2008, but that growth was not sustained. The turnout trend since the 1970s is a wavy line, with neither a strong upward or downward trend."

It is widely believed that the Obama campaign coasted to victory in 2008 on the strength of its historic focus on social media. Regardless of the turnout in 2012, internet culture played an undeniable role spanning an explosive viral video release and widespread political memes.

But the bill would forbid health professionals from diagnosing, treating, or providing preventative measures to minors for sexually transmitted diseases, mental health disturbances, substance abuse, or pregnancy-related care without written parental consent.

“There’s no question this would have a real chilling effect on young people,” Paige Johnson, Vice President of External Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, told Campus Progress.

“They wouldn't seek professional care, and we would see really tragic outcomes from young people from being too afraid of seeking health care,” she continued.

If written parental consent isn't acquired by the minor, the bill mandates that he or she go a local judge and petition for a waiver of the parental consent requirement.

Not only would this be unduly burdensome for the minor, especially with a time-sensitive ailment, it would also encumber an already over-stretched court system that likely cannot handle an influx of hearings related to this bill.

The process of either obtaining parental consent or going to a local court to bypass consent would also increase the amount of time that a minor must go without being treated or diagnosed, which could lead to more health problems.

Additionally, the legislation potentially hinders minors from troubled homes from accessing necessary care.

“I just don’t think they’re thinking about the realities for some families, where there isn't good communication, where there isn't healthy involvement,” Johnson said.

“They’re also not thinking about the young people who have a great relationship with their parents, but they’re too embarrassed to let their parents down," she continued, "But if they seek professional care, the caregiver can help them bring their family in.”

The mandate comes on the heels of other health-related legislative measures being considered in North Carolina, including a refusal to expand Medicaid to poverty-stricken families, and a bill passed by the NC House this week that would allow employers to refuse to cover insurance for contraceptives under a "religious, moral, or ethical objection" clause.

These legislative measures are being considered to allow families to make their own health-care related decisions without forced involvement from the government, but in reality they may obstruct the ability of families from receiving quality and timely care.

"Everybody believes that teenagers who can talk to their parents fare better, that the outcomes are much better,” Johnson said. “But this bill is not going to force the families that are not healthy to be healthy.”

“The policy change represents a movement among a lot of colleges toward more merit-based and less need-based aid," CMC junior Carly Lenderts told Campus Progress. "That shift harms low-income students more than this specific loan policy. As a middle-class student at a private college, I'm obviously biased toward need-based aid as it allows me to be here.”

CMC was among a handful of schools that instituted policies in recent years to remove student loans from the financial aid packages offered to undergraduate students in order to make college more accessible to lower-income students. 

The college enacted its No Package Loan policy in 2008. Instead of loans, the school pushed for more financial aid programs. But with the recent economic recession, the school's board of trustees decided the college wouldn't be able to sustain the policy. 

Research and input from the admission and financial aid committee guided the decision, which studied the effects of the No Packaged Loan financial-aid policy over the past five years.

“CMC's generous financial-aid policy is definitely responsible for me being here," Lenderts said. “My parents never would have signed the paperwork without the promise of significant financial aid.”

College President Pamela Gann announced the policy-shift in an email to the college community March 14. She explained need-based students who enter CMC in fall 2014 will be provided “reasonable loan amounts of up to $4,000 per year in the financial aid package.” And emphasized that students up to the Class of 2017 will not be affected by the change in policy.

“The administration showed us the changes in college cost vs. ability to pay," Lenderts said. "College cost has risen quickly, and ability to pay has risen slowly. A lot of that is because of the recession, and as a result CMC has overspent its financial aid budget in the past few years. Families have less money to send kids to college, but it costs colleges more to retain their competitive edge."

Other schools that have dropped or altered their no-loan policies include, Carleton College of Northfield, Minn., Cornell University, Yale University, Dartmouth College, and Williams College. 

Many colleges advertise diverse student bodies and try to recruit students with diverse backgrounds.

“I think that's great, but socioeconomic diversity is woefully absent at a lot of private liberal arts schools." Landerts argued. "Regardless of other diversity factors, you can't claim to represent a wide array of life experiences if the only students who can afford to come to your college are upper- and upper-middle class.”

She continued:

The debate within the CMC community is centered upon this policy being announced right after other announcements about doubling our endowment and plans to renovate dorms and build a new fitness center. Obviously, donors select what their money goes toward and financial aid is less glamorous than a shiny new building with your name on it. Hopefully CMC will focus future fundraising efforts on increasing the funds for need-based aid. 

With more than 38 million Americans burdened with $1 trillion of student loan debt, there's no mistaking that student debt is a growing crisis in need of meaningful solutions.

Reducing the amount of funding students are pressured to acquire through student loans was a step toward that, but as colleges and universities face the unsustainable nature of no-loan financial aid programs it's becoming clear that other avenues are necessary to lessen the burdens experienced by student loan borrowers.

Like many other universities around the country, UC–Berkeley students passed a referendum to divest from the fossil fuel industry earlier this year. But in recent months, the university has gone far beyond that, using its economic power to shout its disapproval in other arenas, including divesting in the prison-industrial complex, companies that utilize conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and now those that perpetrate human rights violations in Palestine.

This last move was of particular interest to Al-Bayan, a student publication at UC–Berkeley that works to shed light on issues relevant to Muslim students.

An article in the publication's newest issue explained how the university came to this decision, one that its readership likely finds very interesting since Al-Bayan's target readership is Muslim students at UC–Berkeley. The staff of Al-Bayan continue to do a good job of framing issues for their readers and expanding the diversity of voices on their campus.

Al-Bayan is a member of the Campus Progress Journalism Network, which supports independent, student publications that work to serve their communities in this way, giving a voice to areas that are often overlooked by their primary local media.

For most publications, managing one print issue a month is a huge undertaking with little to no support from professors. But this year, Al-Bayan not only produced great print issues drawing light on issues like divestment, the publication staff also launched a new website and spent a good part of the year planning for a sustainable future. At a recent Campus Progress training with the staff of Al-Bayan, we discussed the publication's new website and how to make it as user-friendly as possible, bringing more readers into conversations. 

Publications like Al-Bayan serve a special service to their communities and are a necessary element to continuing a tradition of an open society in our country.

The Campus Progress Journalism Network aims to support quality independent, student journalism and launch young people into successful careers. If you're running a publication or interested in starting one on your campus, head over to the Journalism Network page for more information.