Accomplishments

New Voters Project: In coalition with IUSA and other student organizations, INPIRG registered over 3,500 IU students to vote as part of a nonpartisan youth voter registration drive in 2004.

Campus Climate Challenge: INPIRG's Campus Climate Challenge campaign was reported on by Fox News in Indianapolis as part of a story on mercury pollution in water and fish. At IU, the Biker Phantom greatly increased the awareness of the Campus Climate Challenge and INPIRG on campus, while promoting alternative transportation. The Biker Phantom raised awareness about the benefits of riding a bike to campus as opposed to driving, by tagging bikes with leaflets that listed facts about how much energy was saved and pollution was not put into the air by biking. Some bike riders won prizes just for riding their bike that day.

Hunger and Homelessness: INPIRG students organized a call-in day to Sen. Lugar’s office, and got 140 students to ask him not to cut money from the food stamps program as part of the budget process. The next week, Sen. Lugar stated that his committee would not cut funding from the food stamps program and cited “constituent pressure” as the reason. At IU's Hunger Cleanup, students raised over $9,300 to support a local homeless shelter, as well as national and international anti-poverty efforts.

Higher Education Affordability: INPIRG mobilized in response to federal cuts to higher education funding by organizing students to speak out to the U.S. Department of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Students organized a press conference at the commission hearing, bringing together students from across the IU system, including the Student Body President from IU Kokomo and the Student Representative from the Indiana Commission on Higher Education. The press conference was covered by papers in Bloomington, West Lafayette, and Kokomo. INPIRG also researched loan debt on IU’s campus (over 2/3 of IU students graduate with loans and they average over $17,000) and coordinated a task force comprised of student leaders, administrators, and faculty to discuss the causes and ways to address the rising levels of debt at IU.

INPIRG worked with a national coalition to convince the U.S. House of Representatives to pass HR 5, which would cut in half the interest rate on student loans.  The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, by a vote of 356 to 71.  The bill would lower interest rates over five years on subsidized Stafford student loans, which are used overwhelmingly by students from low- and middle-income families.  This would save the average low or middle-income borrower starting school in 2007 $2,300 in debt.