Dive Brief:

• High-profile education advocates, and more than 60 national organizations, announce launch of “Higher Ed, Not Debt” campaign targeting student loan debt and the high cost of college.

• Campaign will try to encourage college and universities to lower their costs and publicize avenues that student loan borrowers can use to repay their debt. It will also shed light on education privatization issues and legislative work.

• At the same time, a new study blames the student debt crisis on state budget cuts.

Dive Insight:

Key speakers at the kick-off “Higher Ed, Not Debt” press conference were Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Warren plans to introduce legislation addressing student loan debt and college cost issues, though Democrat-sponsored bills are largely irrelevant in the current Congress. Some of the stats cited by the campaign: Over the last 30 years, the cost of college has risen 300%. Over the last 10 years, the number of 25-year-olds in America with student debt is up 91%. Meanwhile, a report by the public policy group Demos finds that higher education cuts have a strong correlation with tighter state budgets. Nationally, higher education state funding has dropped 27% since the Great Recession, compared to a 20% tuition increase at four-year public universities.