Sallie Mae, can you hear us now?

On March 26th, over 300 students from around the country came together to turn their individual stories into the public narrative. Below is a collection of reflections from students that took to the streets, faced arrest, and didn’t back down when Sallie Mae did everything they could to scare them away. At the end of the day, 36 were arrested for trying to meet with Sallie Mae’s CEO, Albert Lord.

I asked to meet and they arrested me
Lucero Castañeda, UO SLAP

My thoughts and heartbeat synchronized as one, while we waited patiently for that single moment we all knew was swiftly approaching. Through an exchange of movements, we all looked at each other and knew it was, “Go Time”. With a sharp turn left, we were on our way to demand and create something that would be known as real, impactful, and fundamental change.

With a second sharp turn, we collided with Sallie Mae to our right. After numerous calls, letters, petitions, and faxes demanding to meet with Sallie Mae’s CEO, Albert Lord and receive nothing but outrageous interest on our loans along with a response filled with silence; we, the students decided to demand a meeting, but this time in person. As the guard at the front doors aggressively denied our entrance, we held firm, clearly stating our position. “All we want is a meeting with Albert Lord, so we are just going to wait here until we get to talk to him”.

We quickly sat on the cold pavement. As our arms inter-locked, our single heartbeat began to progress faster and faster louder and louder. It was as if three hundred students from across the country were joining us. Our tightly woven pack turned into a mass too large to ignore that spilled into the open street, in only a matter of seconds. Our unified heartbeat accelerated into a burst of chants: “Sallie Mae – You can’t hide – We can see your greedy side.”

Sitting on that chilled ground, in front of the Sallie Mae glass doors, in between the mass of students from across the country, I knew I was in the perfect location. I remembered as a child going to get the mail and seeing the Sallie Mae letters, which my brothers and sisters were receiving, time and time again.

“La libertad es como la mañana. Hay quienes esperan dormidos a que llegue, pero hay quienes desvelan y caminan la noche para alcanzarla. – Liberty is like the morning. There are those who sleep and wait for it to arrive, and those that stay awake and walk through the night to reach it.” – Subcomandante Marcos.

I am not one who waits for change and justice to fall on to my lap and open arms. I am one of many who will fight for our rights, our right to an accessible and affordable education. It is time that everyone across this nation understands that there should not be any fees, because our education should be free. All those who were present that day, understood education as a basic right, one that today we are being denied and priced out of.

We waited several hours to meet with Albert Lord. We waited several hours to hear a response from Sallie Mae. Three hundred students chanted in a call and response “Show me what democracy looks like” and the students sitting in front of the Sallie Mae doors responded, “This is what democracy looks like.” Sallie Mae responded to the students by having 36 people arrested in front of their doors on 7th street.

The police officer asked me to turn around, put my hands behind my back, and to relax my wrists. I turned to face the glass doors of Sallie Mae and the tightly woven pack, as they chanted from the base of their lungs, “Hollaback,” the officer turned me to walk to the vans;

I turned to face three hundred students chanting from the base of their hearts, “I’ve got your back.” At that single moment, my heart stopped and single tears filled my eyes as they spilled down my cheeks. I had never felt such a part of something. I had never felt such unity and solidarity in my life.

It was then, more than ever that I understood that I am not the only one who believes education is a right. It was then, more than ever that I understood that this movement is more powerful and larger than me. This movement is going to touch and fundamentally change the lives of more than I can imagine. This movement has no end. This movement is the student movement.

Can You Hear Us Now?
By Maria Jennings, UCSC SLAP

“Sallie Mae, you can’t hide – we can see your greedy side!” This was the chant of choice for the hundreds of student protestors marching in solidarity in front of Sallie Mae headquarters on March 26^th in downtown Washington DC. The United States Student Association and SLAP had gathered students from around the country – California to Massachusetts, Wisconsin to Florida – to come together are protest against Sallie Mae, the biggest profiteer off student loan debt.

2012 is a landmark year for student loan debt – the amount of unpaid debt has finally climbed past the $1 trillion dollar landmark, with an additional $1 million added every six minutes. While students suffer and struggle to pay back the cost of their education, Sallie Mae profits off their interest rates and penalty payments. It’s time to discuss a system of student loan forgiveness with Sallie Mae to enable graduates to move forward, rather than be chained by the cost of their degrees.

We came together and demanded a meeting with the Salle Mae executives who could hear us chanting from their office windows. Despite the obvious fact that, as customers, we were entitled to a meeting, we were ignored and asked to leave by their security team. At around noon, our peaceful and nonviolent protest was interrupted by a DC police force, and thirty-six of our student protestors were arrested.

Our conversation with Sallie Mae is far from over – the students making Sallie Mae rich deserve to be heard. The conglomerate may be able to ignore one voice or two, but not when we all speak out together.

Sallie Mae – can you hear us now? Good.

A Time to Escalate
By Jonathan Alingu, UCF SLAP

I was a marshall at the march to Sallie Mae and the actual action with hundreds of students. Walking alongside the hundreds of students, from California to Florida, I felt a sense of passion, and a sense of sincerity. Many of these students are suffering from crippling student loan debt, which Sallie Mae is the largest holder, and the interest rates make it impossible for many to payback. I heard the yells of justice on the short walk through the National Mall, and the insistence in letting every bystander know that we as students are being oppressed by the system. Sallie Mae didn’t want to see us the first time. We emailed their CEO, and he didn’t want to see us. We had to escalate. 36 brave students waiting in front of their doors, waiting to hear from Sallie Mae, and were taken away by the DC police. These students sacrificed so much just for an education and were refused access to the people directly profiting from them. That is a shame.

We don’t fight these battles for ourselves. I want my brothers and sisters to be freed from the shackles of economic oppression. We cannot rise into better a better socioeconomic status when there are those looking to bringing us down. My desire to see everyone have access to an education without having ridiculous bills to pay is what keeps me going.

This is what democracy looks like!
By Lindsay Domiano, UO SLAP

Marching through the streets of DC, hundreds of students from across the country took up traffic lanes and chanted loudly, clearly, “education is a right”.

At first feeling uncomfortable as onlookers sneered and drivers honked and yelled, I realized this is not an individual issue; this is a systemic issue, and as students, we need to take up space for our message to be heard. With student loan debt recently surpassing 1 trillion dollars, this crippling national problem can no longer be brushed under the table as a personal issue; it is a crisis and a scam that cannot be ignored. Instead of standing alone to struggle through loan payments for decades after college, students can and must rally together to fight the greedy corporations burdening them with daunting interest rates on student loans through school.

Unashamed, students came forward at the Sallie Mae rally admitting tens of thousands of dollars of debt after just a few years of school. “Staying optimistic”, my friend Molly Bacon said of her mountain of debt, “is the only thing I can do at this point.” I swelled with pride as passersby joined the rally, criticizing Sallie Mae and other predatory lenders for punishing students with exorbitant interest rates for wanting to better themselves and become beneficial members of society by going to college.

Reclaiming our education – Reclaiming our future
Victor Sanchez, USSA President

Words can’t adequately describe the energy running through my body the moments right before we walked up to the doors of Sallie Mae and were denied entry. We were on a mission to have a meeting to address what is this countries next sub-prime crisis: student debt.

Over a $1 trillion dollars now, we didn’t move in as radicals, as individuals up to no good, we walked with the burden of debt millions of individuals–and not just current students, but parents, grandparents, etc–face month to month making payments that seem to never end, all in an effort to just talk. So we sat. We sat with arms linked committed to following through on what we had decided was out ultimate outcome: get a meeting with CEO Albert Lord.

They came from multiple states, multiple background, and different stories. But the group that now sat in front of that building was poised and unified. The security guard, Mr. Bahner, was in short, very upset. It was obvious he was trying to instill fear, making loud noises, huffing and puffing to demonstrate his frustration, and even cursing at me, as I continued to project reasons as to why we were sitting there waiting, demanding a meeting. The power dynamics were left undefined, but as I looked around, saw Nancy Gama, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Lucero Castañeda, from the University of Oregon, confidence grew that we would soon hear the rumblings of our comrades coming to support us.

At that point, you could have almost taken the scene out of a movie. There we are, 30 or so of us, security guards running around, speaking into their radios, confused and unsure of how to handle us, pedestrians pausing and asking questions, people across the street from there window offices observing and wondering and finally Mr. Bahner, arms crossed, eyes fixated towards me, then the street, then me again. At that moment we hear the faint escalation of a crowd of over 300 marching our way. I look at our group, then look up to Mr. Bahner, and in an act of total honesty, I mention “We brought some friends.” The change in his face signified the change in who had the power, and although we were all arrested we made our point clear and allowed our brothers and sisters to take in Capitol hill and let our decision makers know of the injustices taking place, with the very company and lending industry that is supposed to care for our futures.

The day was best summed up by my hermano David Castillo from the University of California, Riverside, who also was arrested. He mentioned in the holding cell how a couple with a young boy chided him as a socialist, to which he replied: ” no, I’m a human being, and I’m doing this for your kid.”

Little do people know that many of us understand the larger context as to why we do what we do. We believe education is a RIGHT not because we’re selfish individuals motivated by socialist tendencies–because we’re not, but because we have a vision of a world as it should be. A world where everyone has an opportunity to succeed and attend an institution with no barriers before, during, or after their experience at an institution of higher learning. Moreover, we know that this change is more about our little brothers and sisters, those who come after us. That’s why we’ do what we do. Because we care and love.

So if I were to say one thing moving forward its that we must never abandon our inner crazy, our ability to want and desire an alternative reality in which injustices like student debt do not exist. Real change can happen, and by all means, CEOs like Albert Lord can be reassured we will not stop escalating  until our demands our met, until clear recognition of the injustices individuals like him allow to occur as if nothing cease, and until our ability as a country to enjoy a FREE system of higher education is realized.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2012 at 10:24 pm. It is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.