Student Debt Alert: Sounding the Alarm about Student Loan Debt Organizing Your Own Event on Campus

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1 Student Debt Alert: Sounding the Alarm about Student Loan Debt Organizing Your Own Event on Campus

2 2 How to conduct a student debt yearbook photo shoot VISION AND GOALS The purpose of the Student Debt Yearbook Photo Shoot is to create a local campus yearbook to highlight local campus personal stories on student debt. Through this event you can involve large numbers of students in your effort to advocate for an affordable college education. Your photo shoot should garner over 60 student actions. You ll get roughly 15 photos an hour. The event should take place in a high profile, high traffic location such as the dining hall in the evening, the mailroom over lunch, or near/around the bus stop during high traffic times. ADVANCE WORK IS CRITICAL Advance work is critical to the success of the event. You will need volunteers to staff the photo shoot and to create the posters and banners to make the photo shoot look attractive. Ask student groups to be involved and for their volunteers to staff the event. You will need to locate a digital camera (with extra batteries), a lap top computer, and a student login for wireless service. You will be using a computer and camera to make the photo shoot happen. You must have the cord that attaches the camera to the lap top. You also must ensure that the camera software is installed on the computer. If you cannot secure wireless in the location where your photo shoot will occur (scenario 1 below) then you will need to have a laptop that uses Excel (scenario 2 below). Most lap tops batteries will not last longer than 2 or 3 hours, so ensure you have the power cord. Try to bring an extension cord with you. You can also do this event by collect student yearbook entries on paper from students and taking photos of each student individually you will need to write the photo number on the paper yearbook entry to ensure that the photos match the yearbook entry. The copy of the entry form is below. MATERIALS You can download the Student Debt Alert logo from You can make balls and chains or stuff black garbage bags with newspapers and write STUDENT DEBT on them and put them around your table. TIPS: 1) Make it fun, talk to local businesses and get free food or have faculty who are into the idea bake a cake or have everyone pitch in $2 for Pizza 2) Use the script and train others to use it as well it will make it easier to talk to strangers 3) Music is not prohibited, just use good judgment, remember you are trying to get as many people as you can 4) Be prepared and on top of things (also usually on ½ of the people who say they will show up will, so get twice as many volunteers as you think you need. 5) If you want we can ship the massive inflatable ball and chain, but you would need to contact us and be able to pay for the shipping and a generator to keep the think inflated 6) Make goals so that you can know how close you are to completing your person yearbook

3 3 Sample Script Hi! Do you have a minute to make college affordable? I m working to make college more affordable. Students take on too much loan debt to pay for college. Congress could increase aid this year, but we need to put a human face to the problem. Would you submit an entry for our student debt yearbook? I need to snap your photo quickly and you ll need to fill out this simple form. IF the student says NO to the photo, then ask that his/her yearbook entry be used in our campus student debt yearbook anyway a picture of a mortar board will appear in place of the photo. IF the student says YES to the photo, then ask that s/he get their photo taken in front of the banner. After the photo is taken, be sure that s/he fills out the yearbook statement. Once the entry is complete, the photographer should fill in the number of the correlating photo in the upper right hand corner of the statement. This ensures that photos and entries can be coordinated later. TO UPLOAD STORIES INTO THE YEARBOOK: 1) Go to 2) Enter a person s info into the fields. 3) In the last field, use the Browse button to find the person s photo on your computer (just like attaching a file to an ). 4) Hit Create. 5) That s it! The person s info and photo are now in the database. Ideally, you do this right at the table. Here s how: 1) You need to have a laptop at the table. 2) You need to have an internet connection on the laptop (wireless, or a really long DSL cord). 3) You need to have a digital camera, and it needs to be plugged into the laptop. 4) As people participate, you take their photo. Then you have them enter their info into the web form. Then you download the photo onto your computer, so that you can attach it to the form. If you can t get the laptop, the internet connection, etc., then you ll have too use Plan B: 1) Collect peoples info on paper at the table, or in some sort of spreadsheet on a laptop. 2) Take their photos using your digital camera. (Make sure you have some way of tracking which photos are of which people.) 3) When your event is over, get online and enter the info and photos into the webpage, one at a time. TIPS: 1) Number the cameras you have and record which camera and which number photo it is ON THE STORY SHEET this will let you match them up later, very important. 2) After the event, keep your paperwork and photos, just in case there s any sort of problem with the website (better safe than sorry!).

4 4 3) Make sure you have a way to match up photos with the right people. 4) Make sure your laptop is locked to the table, so that it can t walk away. If you have problems, contact Sean Golan, Student PIRGs Student Debt Alert organizer, seang@studentpirgs.org. 5) you can copy the sheet provided on the next page or print them, copying is often cheaper than using your personal printer Page 4) -Use the story sheet provided on the next page-

5 5 Photo # The Student PIRGs: Student Debt Alert Tell Us Your Story for the Online Student Debt Yearbook! First Name (print): School (please write out): State: Phone: Last Name (print): Year of Graduation: Facebook name: How much debt will you have when you graduate? Will you have federal student loan debt, private student loan debt, or both? What are your non-academic responsibilities while going to school? Why do you think students should not graduate with so much debt? What do you most look forward to when you graduate? Would you be willing to speak to a reporter about the problem of relying on loans to pay for college?

6 6 How to publish a student debt yearbook: PURPOSE Once your photos and entries are in the yearbook, you can produce a real yearbook. The yearbook is an excellent tool for educating campus administrators, journalists and decision makers like state legislators and federal legislators about the human impact of student loan debt. HOW TO 1) Go to the Student Debt Yearbook page of the Student Debt Alert site. Find your campus and open up the yearbook. Copy and paste the entries into a word document 2) Format the yearbook so it is visually pleasing. Put two or three entries per page. It is best to mix up the mortarboards and photos for visual interest. When it is time to print, choose color printing for the best looking yearbook. See the sample yearbook entry page attached here (page 8). 3) Once the body of the yearbook is done, move on to create the cover and the forward. Ideally, the forward is a letter from the students coordinating the project on campus explaining the yearbook in detail. Samples of the cover and the forward are attached here. 4) Take a copy of the cover along with the entries and the forward to a print shop. Print the cover up on stiff paper so that the yearbook has a smarter look and feel. Then, get the pages bound. If you have problems, contact Sean Golan, Student PIRGs Student Debt Alert organizer, at seang@studentpirgs.org. -Feel free to make your cover as appropriately creative as you want-

7 7 SAMPLE STUDENT DEBT YEARBOOK COVER: see next page Rutgers University Student Debt Yearbook SAMPLE STUDENT DEBT YEARBOOK FORWARD:

8 8 To: Financial aid leaders Fr: Rosaria Matos, freshman at Rutgers Livingston 2007 Please take a look at the detrimental impacts of student loan debt as experienced by hundreds of students across New Jersey every day. There are over 4500 entries to the student loan yearbook from nearly every state in the country at At Rutgers Livingston, 60% of the student body carries loan debt. On average we graduate with $18,000 in loans. Too much loan debt runs counter to what a college education should be about. Please increase grant aid, and make student debt more manageable. SAMPLE STUDENT DEBT YEARBOOK PAGE OF ENTRIES:

9 9 What are your non-academic responsibilities while going to school? I have a job. Why do you think students should not graduate with so much debt? I don't want to be stuck owing money for most of my life. What do you most look forward to when you graduate? Not having to pay ridiculous amounts of money. Steven Rutgers University Class of 2009 Biological Sciences Expected debt: $11000 What are your non-academic responsibilities while going to school? working to help pay for school. Why do you think students should not graduate with so much debt? Students should not start their independent lives having to worry about paying off so much money in debt. What do you most look forward to when you graduate? - Penina Rutgers University Class of 2010 Undecided Expected debt: $10000