Grads Have Debt 2

GHD2-150x150Giving Voice to Graduate-Professional Students

GradsHaveDebt2 seeks to inform and educate Members of Congress, and increase public awareness about graduate-professional student loan issues, in order to:

  • REUNIFY the undergraduate and graduate rates to reverse the current inequalities and
  • REINSTATE graduate-professional students’ eligibility for the in-school interest subsidy.

History

The GradsHaveDebt2 campaign began in the summer of 2013 when the US House of Representatives passed H.R. 1911, “The Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013”. This bill mandated, for the first time in United States history, that graduate-professional student borrowers pay higher interest rates than other student borrowers.

GHD2 Campaign Components

The GradsHaveDebt2 campaign has two key components of engagement with members of congress:

  • Message Congress Day (Social Media)
    Graduate-Professional students and our allies message members of congress via Twitter and Facebook to share their student loan stories with them, to inform them on the facts about student loans, and to suggest solutions of how they can address the current problems with student loans. We make it easy to participate by providing a list of sample tweets and Facebook posts.
  • Call Congress Day
    Congressional offices receive many phone calls per day on a wide range of topics. It is no surprise that the amount of attention given to an issue is proportional to the number of phone calls received that particular issue. In general, 10 calls in a day on an issue is the threshold to gain it legitimate attention for a member of Congress. On Call Congress Day we ask individual callers to make a minimum of three (3) calls. All it takes is 10 minutes to make a BIG difference. NAGPS provides a Call-In Script along with a toolkit to make participation accessible for as many as possible.

Upcoming GHD2 Events

We need your participation to make the GradsHaveDebt2 campaign effective and successful. Here are the upcoming GradsHaveDebt2 events and we need you there!

  • Message Congress Day –  October 12th, 2016
  • Call Congress Day – April 5th, 2017

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