joinStampede

The collective action that I wanted to talk about is the JoinStampede movement that is currently happening in the United States as we speak.  The reason why I picked this collective action is that it deals with student debt and a lot of people can relate to it - as most of us take out student loans to pay for post secondary education.  Currently in the United States, student debt exceeds over one trillion dollars and in my opinion, that is an obscene amount of money for one to owe.  In the United States there are typically two solutions to mitigate the burden of student loans, which are bankruptcy relief, or a full-out student loan bailout – both of which destroys credit ratings.  Launched in the beginning of March, JoinStampede is trying to get one hundred thousand people to join their movement and as a group they would collectively negotiate better terms for student loans.  JoinStampede not only targets those who are currently enrolled in post-secondary but also those who have an outstanding student debt that they are currently paying off.  It is needless to say that by having better interest rates students can pay off their loans faster.

Because this is a collective action in progress, the result of this collective action is unknown however it creates awareness of how much students owe in student loans and how much it costs to go to post-secondary in the United States.  Even if this collective action does fail, it may stir up other collective actions that may succeed in the near future.  Collective action can be a powerful tool in changing policy and legislation.  By having a large population rallying for a common cause it creates awareness and attention to the cause.  With awareness and attention to the cause, there is a higher potential for the collective action to succeed.  I like JoinStampede’s idea of a group of people collectively negotiating for lower interest rates and I hope that this campaign is successful, as it will benefit a lot of American students in the long run.  I believe that education is key in creating a more understanding and open-minded society.  By having more people being able to pay off their student loans at a better rate will encourage people to get an education.