Students Protest Lack of Representation at Spellings Summit

Overview & Synopsis

Student lobbyists have sent Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings a letter scolding her for what they see as a minimizing of student representation at the higher-education summit held last week. The Department of Education responded by saying that students had indeed been invited to participate. The letter, which was signed by Jennifer S. Pae, president of the United States Student Association, and Luke Swarthout, a higher-education advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said the secretary's decision to invite nearly 300 college presidents, administrators, policy makers, and bankers, but no students, "demonstrates a dismaying disregard for the very constituency you are supposed to support." The Department of Education said in the days before the meeting that four college students would be there. Swarthout said that while it was nice that students had been invited to tell their stories, it was not clear that the department was showing any real seriousness in including them.