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Hi I'm Mary King I'm a labor economist here in the economics department at Portland State with a strong
interest in policy
and I'm Barbra Dudley I teach here at Portland State as an adjunt but also I
have been
a political activist for many decades now
the title of the classes student debt
economics policy and advocacy and that really captures it we're trying to get
understand both the context the facts
the
reasons for behind growing student debt
and then focus on what can be done about it
i think the key to what students have to learn or are able to learn in a class like
this
is that something like student debt is not an act of god it's an act of the
legislatures both federal and state
it is something that we can do something about
although their debt is to banks in many cases those banks are regulated by
government agencies and the laws are written by people who we elect
our two community partners for this class are Jubilee Oregon which is
a part of uh... international organization Jubilee
which works on developing country debt
and has now taken an interest in student debt as an outgrowth of that the other
uh.. partners that working families organization which is an advocacy
organization that focuses on economic issues in the state legislature here in
oregon