Advocacy Platform
GPSC is very involved in university, state, and national advocacy efforts all to help students with the many struggles and barriers they face. GPSC is a member of many committees at the University of Arizona in everything from budgetary decisions and fee allocation to hiring decisions around campus. Many of our concerns are focused on making sure graduate and professional students have jobs, are paid a living wage, are able to access affordable healthcare and the resources they require, including community, funding for their work, childcare, safety, and more.
GPSC, sometimes in conjunction with ASUA, invites students to regular trips to the state capital in order to allow them to advocate directly to state representatives, and always highlight the need to provide more funding for higher education and Arizona's many universities and colleges.
GPSC's national advocacy platform is extended from the national-affiliated organization, the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS). For example, NAGPS's Spring 2016 Legislative Priorities includes:
We urge our members of Congress to support legislation that:
- Reunify the undergraduate and graduate rates to reverse the current inequalities
- Reinstate graduate-professional students’ eligibility for subsidized loans
We urge our members of Congress to support legislation that ensures public access to research that has been funded through taxpayer dollars.
We urge our members of Congress to support legislation that:
- Increases and sustains research funding to the NSF, NIH, national labs, and other federal research agencies to account for budget caps and sequestration cuts
- Reinstates and ensures future NSF funding for all types of political science research
- Restores funding for the Javits and GAANN fellowship programs to $39 million
We urge our members of Congress to support a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Specifically, we ask that they support legislation that:
- Allow for domestic re-validation of F-type student visas
- Increases the number of visas and green cards available to non-US born graduate and professional students