Action Alert

Take Action Now!

The NACAC government relations team has put together action alerts for you to engage with your elected officials and PACAC GRC encourages you to complete one or more.  If an action alert is Pennsylvania-specific, it will be marked as such.

Support Hunger Free Campus Act

Between one-third and one-half of college students struggle to find enough to eat. Given that college is hard enough without worrying where your next meal will come from, lawmakers have introduced legislation to tackle the issue of food insecurity on campuses across Pennsylvania: The Hunger-Free Campus Act would establish a grant program for institutions that take certain actions to eliminate hunger on their campus, including providing a food pantry and establishing a hunger task force.

Please consider taking a stand with the hardworking students of Pennsylvania by urging your elected officials to support this bill.

Support PASSHE Students with the Nellie Bly Scholarship

Paying for college creates immediate barriers for too many students from across Pennsylvania. Fortunately, Senate Bill 377 would establish the Nellie Bly Scholarship program to provide scholarships and emergency grants to students at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Encourage your state Senator to support this important legislation designed to remove obstacles that at least 44,000 of our students currently face as they pursue affordable and high quality educational futures.

Nellie Bly Scholarship

Urge Congress to Support Student Visa Processing

COVID-19 forced many of our nation’s embassies and consular offices to close, preventing them from issuing visas for students and scholars planning to attend US institutions of higher education.  This will compound the recent drop in enrollment by international students due to recent and ongoing policies by the Trump Administration and other factors.  Urge Congress to support policies that expedite the processing of student visas, so that international students may return and contribute to our campuses and communities. 

Urge your Representative to support policies expediting the process of student visas today!

Urge Changes to Arkansas Academic Challenge (Lottery Scholarships) to Better Support Students

The Arkansas Academic Challenge and Governors’ Distinguished Scholarship lottery scholarships require students to obtain a minimum ACT or SAT score in order to qualify. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students have been unable to take either college admission exam, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to qualify through no fault of their own. Urge Arkansas policymakers to modify the Academic Challenge scholarship requirements to focus on high school grades during this unprecedented time.  

Urge changes to Arkansas Academic Challenge today!

Urge Congress to Support the College Affordability Act

The House Committee on Education and Labor recently passed H.R. 4674, the College Affordability Act. If passed, this bill would reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) and would, among other things:

• Increase the maximum Pell Grant, index the award amount to inflation so that grant dollars would maintain their purchasing power, and expand Pell Grant eligibility to DREAMers and incarcerated individuals;
• Reduce and simplify the federal loan programs and repayment options available to students;
• Simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and improve the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program; and
• Restore critical regulations designed to protect students and taxpayers from unscrupulous colleges, such as rules covering gainful employment and borrowers’ defense to repayment.

Encourage your Representative to support H.R. 4674 today.

If you have any questions, please contact our Government Relations Committee Chair Erin Kennedy - [email protected].