The Huffington Post recently launched a new blog section dedicated to college campuses and the hot-button issues young people are facing all across the nation. This immediately feels right for many, many reasons.

Primary reason, the big story this week is titled, “Majoring in Debt” and highlights the stories of young people all across the US who are swimming in student loans. Some people are pissed, some shrug their shoulders, but most have discovered that despite making the sacrifice to get themselves to school—the options post-degree are less than fulfilling. Competitive and limited job market (thanks recession), intense payment plans, and a big dose of “trapped by debt” are the prevailing sentiments here.

Students nationwide have borrowed $527 billion to go to school this year and have one student pondering “where’s our bailout?!” Excellent question, Todd. Excellent question.

Among other reasons why this new college section of Huffington Post feels right:

This site has some hilarious articles and I think we could all stand to laugh a little more.

Young people are the cultural pulse of our nation? What? It’s true. Not only can we tell you what’s hot right now, but our mastery of optimism AND cynicism makes it pretty easy to predict the future.

Example: I could imagine that in my lifetime this country will see a comprehensive, universal health care system and we will somehow develop a worldwide plan to end poverty. Then again, it won’t matter because the world will probably end in 2012. You know, apocalypse.

That leaves a LOT of room for something between those two extremes to happen. When it does, I will take credit for being partially right. Boom, future predicted. Now if I could only knock out that debt…

Here are some WWU students Majoring in Debt too:

There’s more on our Flickr

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John, a senior at Skyline High School in Sammamish

On Monday, LEV took a whole busload of students from around the state down to our state’s capital for a crash course in education advocacy.

Aside from free t-shirts and pizza (a good thing on any day), we also had the opportunity to get together with other students from their legislative districts and brainstorm some message points to deliver to our legislators. We even took part in the gargantuan Rally for Our Future on the steps of the Capitol building, along with 4,000 other like-minded students and citizens, and heard the personal stories of people from all over the state who demonstrated the need for new revenue and the ramifications of cutting funding for education and human services.

Maria and Jesus, who attend Health Sciences and Human Services High School in White Center, rallied to protect funding for kids, schools and human services.

The day culminated in an EPIC scavenger hunt around the capitol, where the student-advocates delivered their notes to their legislators, busted out dance moves on the floor of the rotunda in the Legislative Building, and had the opportunity to sit in on the debates on the House and Senate floors.

Parents brought their kids to Olympia to remind legislators who are impacted by state budget cuts.

It was pretty incredible to be able to see some of the inner cogs and gears of our government (supposedly) working hard on…something. It was also a pretty venue for students to express their opinions on the issues.

Jesus Robles, a junior at Health Sciences and Human Services High School in White Center, was one of a handful of students who stated their beef directly in a video testimony: “My favorite part was being interviewed over the issues in my school and sending the letters to the representatives and senators,” he says.

All in all, LEV gave over 40 students the opportunity to take a direct role in their government and gain some experience in working directly with their representatives.

We met with Sen. Margarita Prentice's legislative aide, Beau Perschbacher, to talk about how budget cuts could impact their schools.

“It was really exciting to express our concerns to the people who are making the decisions,” says Bill Dow, a freshman at the University of Washington, who had the opportunity to sit down with an aide from his state Senator’s office. He adds, “And I want to get marble installed in my dorm room.” (Marble is a pretty constant feature at the capitol-and yes, that includes the bathrooms.)

Experiences like this demonstrate the ease with which concerned students and constituents can see first-hand how their state is being governed, and convey their concerns to their representatives. It was a first time for me, and I was amazed at how we could simply walk into the offices of our representatives and senators and deliver them a note with our views, or pull them out of the chamber to talk with them directly. I mean, how cool is that?!

The answer, of course, is very, very cool.

We left Olympia with a better understanding of how our state is governed and how easy it is to convey our concerns to our elected officials.

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1) Obama stated his commitment to making community colleges across the country more affordable

2) the Bus held Olympia in a Can (part 1 of 3)!

The first three weeks of the legislative session have been a whirlwind of topics: the budget, pre-kindergarten, the budget, race to the top, umm the budget, new revenue sources, and did I mention that people are concerned about Washington’s budget? Not so much a ‘whirlwind of topics’ … maybe more of a black hole, actually.

Amidst the furor over our 2.6 billion dollar deficit, Washington students must know one thing.  State need-grants and work study money for two and four year students are on the chopping block.

This was the hot topic last night at Grey Gallery and Lounge, where over 100 young people convened with the Bus, LEV, WSA, and UAW Local 4121 to hear and discuss how this session will affect campuses across Washington.

A few, key facts:

Washington State has over 83,000 college students receiving some form of need-based grant or work study money.

83,000 is more than a sold out Seahawks game at Qwest Field and roughly 2/3rds of all students across the state!

Cutting the state-need grant would entirely eliminate funding for 12,300 students and reduce (by more than half) the awards for 57,000 other students.

Nobody likes the idea of students taking out private loans to pay for their education-except the banks.

Check out Washington Student Association’s calendar for days of action in February and stay posted to League of Education Voters’ student Facebook page for updates on how young people can stay involved in this year’s legislative session.

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Yesterday, Christina Rocks from Washington Student Association and I (Maggie), spent the day traveling up the coast to visit the campus of Western Washington University. Besides wanting to catch beautifully obstructed views of the mountains (clouds, fog, rain, large trees), we roadtripped north to talk to WWU students about what Washington’s budget crisis will mean for their education.

The run-down…

We’re in a budget crunch. About 2.6 billion in deficit, actually. Annnnnnnd, the governor and our legislators have been tasked with the tough job of cutting back spending– in a very serious way. On the chopping block is state funding of need-based financial aide and work study grants. These cuts would affect almost 83,000 students (about 2/3rds of Washington’s 4-year students).

Also on the table for discussion? Allowing state universities to raise their tuition– up to 14%.

If some of you are thinking this sounds like déjà-vu from last year’s session, you are partially right. It partially is. Last year, UW raised its tuition 14%. Why 14?  Because 14 divided by 2 is the most magical number known to the wizarding community.

But I digress. If you want to hear what WWU students had to say, here ya go:

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