New Voters Project
The 2008 election saw young voter turnout surge by at least 2.2 million votes over 2004 levels. Students involved with the Student PIRGs New Voters Project played a big role in the impressive turnout of students in this historic election. On 100 campuses in 17 states, the Student PIRGs' New Voters Project combined old-fashioned pavement pounding with technology to reach 400,000 young voters.

Students on campuses across the country stormed dorms, invaded classrooms and even staged guerrilla theater performances to urge young voters to the polls. They also employed a cadre of tech tools - from Facebook to ‘text out the vote’ tables to urge their friends to the polls.

In fall 2004, the Student PIRGs sponsored the largest youth voter mobilization campaign in history. Nationwide, the New Voters Project helped to register over half a million voters, including over 400,000 18-to-24-year olds. And leading up to election day, we made reminders to over 500,000 young voters. In fall 2006, we turned out the vote again, working on 80 college campuses in twenty states to boost voter turnout.  Our hardworking coalition partners and student leaders helped register 75,000 students to vote, and leading up to Election Day we made 94,000 personalized Get Out the Vote reminders either over the phone or face-to-face.

Higher Education
In May 2009, Congress passed strong legislation, called the “Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act” that will halt the most egregious abuses by the credit card industry. The CARD bill eliminates a lot of unfair practices, including: excessive and growing penalty fees, unfair billing practices, and unjustified and retroactive interest charges. It also restricts and requires greater transparency for marketing targeted exclusively at college campuses or consumers under the age of 21. Despite the credit card industry's lobbying to defeat or gut the bill, the Senate and the House both passed the bill with overwhelming, bi-partisan majorities.

Our Student Debt Alert campaign works to raise awareness about the growing problem of student debt and call for solutions. Through the campaign, hundreds of students posted their photos and stories on the Student Debt Yearbook, to illustrate to decision makers the importance of financial aid programs. Hundreds of additional students sent testimony to the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education urging them to address student debt issues.

In September 2007, we helped pass the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the largest increase in federal student aid in 20 years. This law also made dramatic cuts in interest rates for student loans. We followed up by helping pass the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which was signed by President Bush in August 2008. That law contains several important policy changes, including an increase in the maximum authorized level of the Pell Grant to $9,000.

Affordable Textbooks
In August 2008, we helped get an Affordable Textbooks provision included in the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act. The provision helps lower the cost of textbooks for millions of students by requiring publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty and requiring publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials "unbundled." It also asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks, including prices, for each course when students are registering for classes.

Wilderness Preservation
Despite a strong push by the oil industry and their allies in Congress, the Student PIRGs were part of a successful campaign to beat back efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.

Our Ecopledge campaign convinced Staples to stop selling products made from old-growth wood, and convinced Coke and Pepsi to start using recycled plastic in their bottles.

The PIRGs were a driving force behind President Clinton's decision in 2001 to protect 58 million acres of pristine national forests from road building and most logging.