MASSPIRG at Massbay Community College

Don’t Trash Mass!: Each year, we bury and burn about 6 million tons of waste here in Massachusetts alone. The good news is that 80% of our trash can be reused or recycled. That’s why we are calling on the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to increase and expand recycling by updating the bottle bill. If updated, this bill would allow all plastic bottles to be redeemed when recycled, encourage citizens to recycle, and drastically cleaning up our state. Additionally, the Solid Waste Master Plan, which outlines how to deal with our state’s waste, is expiring this year. We have a critical opportunity to stop pollution and move Massachusetts towards a system of zero waste. This semester, we will be gathering petitions and faculty endorsements, holding educational events, and encouraging students to attend hearings on this issue. Check back for updates so we can stop trashing Mass!

Making Higher Education More Affordable: In the past twelve years, the number of students graduating with $25,000 has increased five fold. On September 17^th, 2009, the U.S House of Representatives passed H.R. 3221, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility. This bill is the largest investment in student aid in history.  It diverts $40 billion dollars away from banks that receive a massive subsidy to lend to students and toward students in the form of steadily increasing Pell Grant aid. Additionally, with specific earmarks for community colleges, this bill will significantly open the doors of community colleges to students across the nation seeking to attain higher education. Here on campus, we delivered a Wall of Debt to Representative Frank’s office to make sure he stands up for students, not banks, by encouraging his fellow representatives to support this legislation. We will also be making phone class to Senator Kerry’s and Senator Kirk’s office to get similar legislation passed in the Senate.

Affordable Textbooks: Open textbooks - free, online textbooks - are becoming a national trend, thanks to our campaign to shine light on these great alternatives. Over 2,000 faculty members have signed our statement of support for open textbooks. This semester, we will be teaching students about open textbooks, showing them examples of cheap, hard copy textbooks, and educating them on the injustices of the textbook industry.

New Voters Project: Here in Massachusetts and nationwide, we helped register and turn out young voters. Here at Mass Bay we helped nearly 200 students register and made reminders to students during the days leading up to Election Day through emails, calls, canvassing, tabling, and text messages. On Election Day, there were 3.4 million more young voters in 2008 compared to 2004. The youth share of the electorate also surpassed that of people over 65 - an impressive feat.

Protecting Students from Bad Credit Card Practices: Our report, "The Campus Credit Card Trap," received national attention for exposing the bad practices of credit card companies on campus and has been quoted in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times. We used this attention to educate Congress and help pass the national Credit Card Holder Bill of Rights to stop some of the worst credit terms and conditions that can plunge students - and all consumers - into debt.