MASSPIRG FAQ
What is MASSPIRG?
MASSPIRG is a statewide, student-directed organization that works to solve problems facing our society. Our environment and public health are threatened, students are being ripped off, poverty is on the rise, and our decision makers aren’t listening to ordinary citizens. MASSPIRG combines the idealism of students with the expertise of professional staff who conduct research, education, and grassroots organizing for the public.
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What does MASSPIRG do?
We get results. This semester alone, MASSPIRG staff and students convinced Congress to cut federal subsidized Stafford loan interest rates in half, saving students $4000 over the lifetime of their loans after 2011. We also played a huge part in getting Governor Patrick to rejoin Massachusetts into a regional initiative to cut global warming pollution. Last semester we registered over 600 students to vote, increasing youth voter turnout in Salem and across the state!
Last year across the state, MASSPIRG raised over $12,000 to fight hunger and homelessness. Right here at Salem State College, students raised over $500 last spring for the National Hunger Cleanup and participated in over 50 hours of service at the Salem Mission. This year, students have raised over $200 through bake sales and “Spare Change for Social Change” events.
Currently we are working to increase renewable energy in the state of Massachusetts. We have showed "An Inconvenient Truth" on campus, and we brought a solar panel to campus to make smoothies in a blender powered by the sun.
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How is MASSPIRG funded?
Students at Salem State vote to fund MASSPIRG through a $7 per student per semester waivable fee that appears on their tuition bill. This semester, students will be voting to increase the fee to $10 per student per semester so that students and the organization can do more work, hire more staff, and make more positive social change. Students at Salem State have been a part of MASSPIRG for nearly 30 years, pooling together their resources statewide with other MASSPIRG chapters to hire staff, such as researchers and grassroots organizers, to work with them on issues that they care about. Students decide how best to spend their resources on the issues that they care about, such as fighting homelessness, cleaning our water ways, and working for more clean energy.
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Why go to the ballot?
We've been going to the ballot every year since MASSPIRG started at Salem State as a way to reaffirm student support for the work that we do. The mandate from the student community that says that Salem State students want clean air, clean water, affordable tuition, and an end to poverty gives us the ammunition it takes to get our work done. By having students vote to fund MASSPIRG with a per student fee, we can count on those resources to keep doing our work in the future.
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What are the priorities for the next few years?
To protect and enforce the consumer and environmental laws we already have in order to clean our water and protect our forests. President Bush has lined himself up as one of the most anti-environmental presidents ever. It seems as if there is a new environmental rollback everyday - everything from clean air, to endangered species, to pristine wilderness is in trouble. MASSPIRG will save these laws, and keep pushing for environmental policies that will actually start cleaning up our waterways, reducing air pollution, and fixing our current energy problems. And then there are all of the cuts that he and Congress have made to federal higher education programs, and programs that help the poorest people in our country - things like food stamps and Medicaid.
But we're not just playing defense. We're working on new ways to make higher education affordable through new grants and lower interest rates. We're fighting to lower the cost of textbooks. We're looking to ban some of the most dangerous toxins from entering our waterways. We're working to get college campuses to start leading the way in terms of addressing global warming and being leaders in clean energy.
And we're working to alleviate hunger and homelessness in our community.
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How does MASSPIRG spend the funding it receives?
We use it all to tackle Massachusetts' biggest problems and win positive reform for the state. When you look at the things we've done- protect 58.5 million acres of forests, ban the most dangerous pesticides from daycares and schools, clean up the air all across the country - it's pretty clear that it's money well spent. The staff we hire and the campaigns we run do take resources, and with the challenges facing Massachusetts and the rest of the country over the next few years, you can be sure that our staff and students will use these resources to stand up to the special interests and win. Our clean water, our land use protections, consumer and student rights - they all rely on our ability to hire a crack team of experts and professionals to fight for students.
Besides, polluting industries spend millions of dollars each year just on campaign contributions to elected officials (that doesn't include their lobbyists, their propaganda, their campaign ads, etc.), a $10 fee every term is small change in comparison to what we're up against. That small change makes a big difference - they might spend tens of millions of dollars trying to avoid pollution regulations, but with the help of students here at Salem State, we are able to protect our environment and public health. Student support gives us the opportunity to make a difference at the local, state and even national level.
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Where is the money spent?
Off and on campus, but mostly it goes to wherever MASSPIRG's resources will make a difference on the issues that students care about. The whole point of establishing MASSPIRG is to be able to have the resources to hire a staff of professionals - attorneys, researchers, organizers, and advocates - to work with students to fight against the special interests wherever they are trying to pollute the environment, rip-off consumers, or corrupt the democratic process.
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Why does MASSPIRG hire staff?
The problems that MASSPIRG undertakes are large, statewide, often national in scope. Staff are an important part of having an effective statewide organization. They bring expertise to student's ideas and continuity to long term student campaigns.
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Do students in each chapter decide what issues to work on?
Students decide on the campaigns that they want to work on both locally and at the statewide level. Student can bring campaign ideas to the statewide board, where students from different chapters get together, to work on across the state. The problems that we face aren’t just local; everyone is fighting poverty, environmental destruction, and for affordable education across the state and the country.
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Why does MASSPIRG work statewide?
The problems that Massachusetts faces do not only occur on campus. In order to clean up our waterways, protect our national forests or lower textbook prices our staff need to go to the decision makers all across the state and in Washington D.C. With statewide grassroots support as well as our staff tackling problems from Boston to the Berkshires, we are able to take on the special interests that create these problems and actually win for students and the public interest.
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