Student debt in the United States has grown $650 billion over the last nine years, standing now at around $996 billion according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. For some perspective, $996 billion could pay the full tuition for 4,091,486 students to graduate from Harvard Law School. Student debt is now bigger than both outstanding credit card debt and debt from auto loans in the nation.
DePaul Students for Justice and its parent organization Illinois Indiana Regional Organizing Network (IIRON) held a public meeting at the Chicago Temple April 13 to raise awareness of the student debt epidemic in the United States and to promote their platform to combat the crisis. The meeting attracted around 500 students and other members of the Chicago community, completely filling the venue. Following the public meeting, a delegation of students also traveled to Washington D.C., April 20 to lobby their platform and take part in actions organized by National People’s Action.
IIRON is made up of five organizations from different campuses throughout Chicago. The organization is represented in Loyola, North Park, University of Illinois Chicago, University of Chicago and DePaul University.
“Many of our universities have been running like Wall Street corporations,” said Dylon Busser, a member of the IIRON who chaired the public meeting.
Throughout the meeting, speakers pointed to the corporatization of universities as a cause for increase in student debt and the raising of tuition.
“We are the leaders we have been waiting for,” said Briana Tong, a University of Chicago student who spoke at the public meeting. “Today we have solutions.”
The IIRON platform is called the