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John Vu, the external vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, has begun working in conjunction with the United States Students Association – a national student advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. – to lobby against President Bush’s proposals by supporting the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Bush has proposed to eliminate funding to 48 programs in the Department of Education and cut education funding by $530 million. Meanwhile, student fees have increased 62 percent for UCLA students since 2002.

Established in 1965, the act authorized programs and activities related to higher education, most of which fall into four main categories: student financial aid, support services to help students complete high school, aid to strengthen institutions and aid to improve K-12 teacher training.

The act is reviewed yearly for financial adjustments but is otherwise reauthorized entirely every five to eight years. It was last completely revisited in 1998 and is again on the agenda this year for reauthorization.

Because of the high stakes the act holds in financial and program sponsorship, Vu, also a member on the USSA Board of Directors, began early in the summer during USSA conferences to determine the areas the group finds most important.

In order to garner more needed support for his advocacy work, Vu has helped organize programs to inform students on issues regarding education, such as the Students of Color Conference, the Get Out The Vote Campaign and, most recently, a hot dog sale on Friday.

The hot dog sale, organized by Jeannie Biniek, national affairs director in the external vice president office, was meant to highlight the true costs of attendance at the University of California and show the importance of federal programs in keeping higher education affordable.

Students wishing to buy a hot dog had to pay extra for the bun, condiments, plate and napkins – a symbolic way to demonstrate the extra fees for housing, books and living expenses students have to pay – to emphasize that the cost of tuition is only complementary to other expenses.

The budget cuts and rising costs of education are especially important to the UCLA campus as it has the greatest percentage of low-income students of all the UC campuses, said Ronald Johnson, the UCLA director of financial aid.

It is because of these concerns that Vu, Biniek and the USSA argue that these fee hikes will decrease access to higher education.

According to Financial Aid Office records, 45 percent of undergraduates are receiving some form of funding aid, which makes this initiative particularly important to the UCLA community.

As a part of the external vice president’s responsibility, Vu plans not only to educate students on these issues, but also to teach them how to effectively voice their opinions by holding an advocacy training session with the UCLA Community and Governmental Relations Office.

The lobby-training workshop is planned for this Thursday and is open to anyone who wishes to learn more about the efforts that have been made and how they can have an effect on their elected officials.

Another point the USSA addresses is the importance of federal funding and student financial aid grants to underrepresented groups.

The 2001 census on the condition of education shows that although participation in postsecondary education over the past three decades has risen, individuals from low-income families – the bottom 20 percent of all family incomes – and several minority groups remain significantly less likely to participate in postsecondary education than other individuals.

To compensate for this need, regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds, Bush has also proposed to increase Pell Grants by $100 every year for five years. A Pell Grant is a federal fund awarded to students who qualify based on financial need.

But USSA representatives say it is simply not enough.

“While increasing the maximum Pell Grant award is an important part of college affordability, the current proposal is misleading,” said Ajita Talwalker, USSA president. “A modest increase to the Pell Grant while simultaneously attacking the other parts of a student’s aid package that are necessary for a student to go to school is not educational access.”

According to the UCLA Financial Aid Office, UCLA had the largest Pell Grant share in the nation in the 2001-2002 academic year.

Vu, along with other student lobbyists, will encourage students to sign postcards to send to elected officials to communicate student concerns about the future of higher education.

When Vu and others from USSA go to the nation’s capitol to lobby from March 18 through March 22, they plan to present the collected postcards to the officials to show how large the pool of students affected by their decisions really is.