Since being signed into law in 2010, the Affordable Care Act has already expanded access to high-quality, affordable health coverage for the millions of young adults who can now stay on their parent’s health insurance plans. And beginning in 2014, even more young adults will gain health care coverage through the law’s health insurance exchanges—private marketplaces where individuals can shop for health insurance—and the expansion of Medicaid.

Critics of the law ignore these facts and instead argue that the Affordable Care Act will increase health insurance premiums for young adults, especially in the nongroup, or individual, market. But our conservative estimates show that among all young adults, only about 3 percent of them might actually see a premium increase in the nongroup market—that is just 0.5 percent of all Americans.

This group consists of healthy young adults who have nongroup health coverage and whose incomes are too high to qualify for federal assistance that will offset any increase in premiums. But even these individuals will benefit from the law because with increased premiums come far greater benefits and security. Under the Affordable Care Act, health care plans will include benefits such as prescription drugs, maternity care, and mental-health care, which most nongroup plans exclude today. And this improved coverage will remain in place even as people age or become sick or injured. In other words, comparing the price of coverage before and after health care reform is just as unreasonable as comparing the price of Fred Flintstone’s self-powered Stone Age automobile to a modern-day hybrid vehicle—the former only functions as long as you are healthy and capable of running everywhere you need to go, but the minute you break an ankle or become ill, you may as well have never had a car in the first place.

In fact, the real threat to young adults’ access to affordable insurance coverage is not these possible premium increases, but the shortsighted decision by certain states to reject the law’s Medicaid expansion. Nearly half of all currently uninsured young adults would qualify for Medicaid under full expansion, but they will remain uninsured unless their states participate.

This brief reviews how the Affordable Care Act will affect health care coverage for young adults, looking at both the law’s private insurance market and Medicaid expansion provisions.

The Affordable Care Act expands the health coverage options of young adults

Young adults ages 19 to 29 have historically been uninsured at higher rates than any other age group, not because of a lack of desire for health coverage but because they have lacked access to affordable health coverage— only 64 percent of young adults had health insurance coverage in 2010. Responding to a 2011 survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that aims to promote a high-performing health system, 41 percent of all young adults and 60 percent of uninsured young adults said they did not receive needed health care because of the cost of care. Half of uninsured young adults also reported medical debt or problems paying medical bills, while 29 percent of insured young adults reported these problems due to the lack of sufficient health care coverage.

One major reason why young adults have been uninsured at such high rates is because prior to the Affordable Care Act, many of them aged out of their insurance coverage when they turned 19—whether they had been covered under a parent’s health plan or under Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, better known as CHIP.

Second, a disproportionate number of young adults lack insurance because of the type of work they do. Many people in their early 20s work in low-income or temporary jobs—employment that rarely offers health insurance.

Third, this group also faced barriers to coverage in the broken individual insurance market prior to the Affordable Care Act, including discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and other practices that raised premiums or terminated coverage if a person became sick.

The Affordable Care Act tackles these problems in several ways. First, the law allows young adults to stay on their parents’ plans until they reach age 26. As of June 2012 more than 3 million young adults gained insurance coverage because of this change— a 10.4 percent increase in the number of insured young adults from 2010. Of the 13.7 million young adults with this source of coverage, about 6.6 million would not have had this option before the Affordable Care Act.

Second, the law expands Medicaid to all adults with incomes at or below 138 percent of the poverty level—currently $15,856 for individuals. Until Medicaid expansion is in place in 2014, most states limit Medicaid coverage for nondisabled adults to those with incomes well below 100 percent of the federal poverty level—$11,490 for an individual in 2013—unless the person is pregnant or parenting a minor child. These stringent eligibility criteria leave many low-income young adults, especially men—who are less likely to be parenting—without health insurance options.

Third, the Affordable Care Act’s market reforms and new health insurance exchanges will help young adults purchase quality, affordable health insurance. The exchanges are new marketplaces where individuals will purchase health insurance. Young adults without access to other health insurance will be able to go online to one site and compare their health insurance options, and the exchanges will also determine eligibility for financial assistance or Medicaid.

Young adults will find that the quality of coverage offered in the exchanges is vastly improved over most current insurance options in the individual market. These exchange plans, for example, will include prescription drug and mental-health benefits. Having access to quality insurance through the exchanges gives this group greater flexibility to explore different career and educational paths without being tied to a job for the sake of having health insurance. With guaranteed access to health insurance, young adults will be free to accept lower-wage or entry-level jobs that do not offer health insurance. They can also start their own businesses or pursue educational opportunities.

Thanks to these changes, the rates of health coverage for young adults should increase dramatically beginning in 2014. And if every state participates in Medicaid expansion, young adults would reach near universal health care coverage. Unfortunately, a number of states plan to reject Medicaid expansion.

Young adults will find affordable health care options on the new health care exchanges

The argument that young adults are harmed by the law because they may pay higher premiums is misleading. This claim fails to take into account many of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that make coverage more affordable. For many young adults, these financial and consumer protections will lower their overall health care costs and improve their health and wellness.

Consider the following: Lower- and middle-income young adults who purchase health insurance through the exchanges qualify for different levels of financial assistance. The law offers premium tax credits on a sliding scale for individuals with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level—$45,960 for an individual in 2013. In addition, the law provides cost-sharing subsidies to individuals up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level—$28,725 for an individual in 2013—which reduces out-of-pocket costs for covered benefits. The law also includes out-of-pocket limits that are more generous at lower income levels. Finally, many of the preventive care services that young people need more frequently than other medical services will be covered at no cost. Together, these provisions offer far more financial protection than most policies currently available in the nongroup market.

The Affordable Care Act’s “catastrophic plans” are another option for young adults who might still find premiums in the nongroup market unaffordable. In the past, catastrophic plans only protected individuals in emergency circumstances. These plans would typically not have included routine primary care or preventive services, and in cases in which these services were covered, the plan-holder would first have had to meet a very high out-of-pocket deductible. The catastrophic coverage plans offered in the exchanges still have high deductibles, but those deductibles do not apply to the no-cost preventive services or up to three primary care visits. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that premiums for a person in their 20s will be 29 percent less in catastrophic plans than in bronze plans, which have the lowest-priced premiums for most people shopping for insurance in the exchanges.

Debunking rate shock for young adults in the nongroup market

Currently, health insurers in the nongroup insurance market charge people approaching retirement up to five times as much for premiums as they charge younger people because of a practice known as age rating. The Affordable Care Act includes a 3-to-1 age-rating band, which limits what insurance companies can charge a 64-year-old for premiums to three times what a 21-year-old may be charged for the same coverage. As a result, more risk is shifted from older enrollees to younger enrollees.

Insurance-industry-sponsored studies claim that this limit will drastically increase premiums for young people, contributing to a scenario called “rate shock.” Opponents of the health reform law claim that these increased premiums will, in turn, discourage young, healthy people from buying insurance. If this group stays out of the exchanges, it would leave a disproportionately greater number of older, sicker individuals in the risk pool, ultimately driving up prices for those remaining until coverage becomes totally unaffordable—a phenomenon referred to as the “death spiral.”

But there are two major problems with these studies. First, their authors have not disclosed in any detail the pricing assumptions that underlie their assessment of age rating on premiums. Second, they often fail to take into account other policies implemented through the Affordable Care Act that mitigate the impact of changes in age-rating practices, such as the financial assistance detailed above and the risk-adjustment provisions of the law that serve to stabilize the health insurance market. Even those that do account for the premium tax credits do not take into account other financial assistance and protections, such as cost-sharing subsidies or out-of-pocket caps, or the increased value of coverage that itself reduces out-of-pocket costs. As a result, these studies vastly overstate the potential for rate shock and significantly downplay the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

In fact, a recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute found that the current 5-to-1 age bands actually undercharge young adults relative to their expected expenses; the 3-to-1 age band is more consistent with this group’s expected costs. The authors of the Robert Wood Johnson study concluded that, “claims by anyone in the insurance industry that this change will have dramatic implications for the out-of-pocket costs of young adults are unfounded.” The study went on to note that few young adults will see an increase in premiums because of age rating and that those who do will only see small increases.

Census data show that among all young adults, only 3 percent might see premium increases in the nongroup market

A very small group of young adults may see premium increases due to the Affordable Care Act’s age rating and other market reforms. Data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey shows that, of the nearly 47 million young Americans between the ages of 19 and 29, only about 3 percent might see higher premiums in the nongroup market. These young adults have incomes that may be too high to qualify for federal subsidies to fully offset the premium increases.

To put this finding into a larger context, this group is less than 0.5 percent of the entire United States population. It includes approximately 789,234 young people with incomes between 250 percent and 399 percent of the poverty level— currently $28,725 to $45,845 for an individual—and 652,048 young people with incomes of 400 percent of the poverty level or higher—currently $45,960 annually for an individual. Those with incomes below 400 percent of the poverty level will qualify for federal tax credits that will offset some increase in premiums.

The vast majority of young adults, however, will not see premium increases because they have employer-sponsored coverage or because they have incomes below 250 percent of poverty level—$28,725 for an individual in 2013. Young adults with incomes below this level will either qualify for Medicaid under the expansion—if their states participate—or they will receive federal subsidies for premium assistance and cost sharing that will offset any premium increases.

The figures in the above chart are conservative, and fewer young adults in this market are likely to experience higher health care costs. Some of this group may choose the less costly catastrophic coverage plan. Others may be enrolled in grandfathered plans that are exempt from many of the law’s market reforms. In Maryland, for example, 60 percent of enrollees in CareFirst insurance plans—representing about 70 percent of the nongroup insurance market in the state— will not see any increases in premiums because they will be grandfathered in their current health plans. It is also possible that some in this group may move to their parent’s insurance plans.

As we discuss below, however, premium costs only tell one part of the story. Current premiums for healthy young adults in the nongroup market may be very low, but they contain large coverage gaps and have limited to no financial protections.

Why premium amounts are not the entire story: Flintstone car versus the modern hybrid vehicle

It is misleading to compare the cost of premiums before and after the Affordable Care Act. The value of the insurance that is available to purchase post-Affordable Care Act is as distant to prereform coverage as the self-powered Flintstone mobile is to a modern hybrid vehicle.

Without the law’s reforms, sicker consumers and those with pre-existing medical conditions had a difficult, if not impossible, time finding coverage in the nongroup market. Even if they were fortunate enough to find coverage, the cost could be exorbitant and the coverage extremely limited.

Because of the Affordable Care Act’s reforms, insurance plans will offer a broader benefits package, known as essential health benefits. These changes may cause premium costs to go up, but once enrolled, the plans will pay for a greater share of medical costs, and consumers are protected by out-of-pocket limits. For these reasons, even young adults paying higher premiums may see their overall health care costs decline.

To illustrate the point: A recent study cited by opponents of the law warns that a healthy 25-year-old with an income of 300 percent of the poverty level—currently $34,470 per year for an individual—could see his or her premiums costs go up by $783 a year because of the law’s market reforms. But even if this projection is accurate, it only tells a small part of the story. Before the Affordable Care Act, a young woman’s yearly birth control and related doctor visits could have cost as much as $600 to $1,200. But because of the health reform law all exchange plans must cover recommended preventive services, including birth control and yearly doctor’s visits, at no cost. Because of this one benefit, young female enrollees will likely break even with or recuperate the difference in their premiums.

Let’s look at two other examples: The Affordable Care Act ends the practice of insurers charging young women in the nongroup market as much as 150 percent more for the same insurance coverage as young men, even when the plan excludes coverage for gender-specific conditions such as maternity care. And postreform, insurers may no longer categorize certain gender-specific conditions, such as past cesarean sections or injuries from sexual assault or domestic violence, as pre-existing conditions.

But even young, healthy men, who have historically had the lowest health care premiums, are likewise already seeing substantial benefits from the Affordable Care Act. This group has had particularly large coverage gains specifically because the law now allows them to stay on their parents’ health plans until they reach age 26. The percentage of young men ages 21 to 25 with insurance coverage has increased from 57.9 percent to 72 percent since the law’s passage. And young men in the individual market will benefit from the security of knowing that their coverage will remain constant even if they get sick or suffer an injury.

Rejecting Medicaid expansion threatens coverage for a large number of young adults, as those with low incomes are at the highest risk of being uninsured

The biggest threat to insuring young adults is not increased premium costs, but the fact that many states are still threatening to reject Medicaid expansion.

Most nondisabled, low-income children age out of Medicaid and CHIP on their 19th birthdays. But unlike their more affluent peers, these individuals generally do not have the option of staying on a parent’s health plan or purchasing their own insurance: 69 percent of young adults in families with incomes at or above 400 percent of the poverty level found coverage under their parents’ plan between November 2010 and November 2011, while only 17 percent of those with incomes under 133 percent of poverty did so.

A 2011 survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that young adults in moderate- to low-income households experienced the most difficulty affording insurance coverage: 70 percent of young adults with incomes that would allow them to qualify for Medicaid expansion reported a gap in insurance coverage in 2011, more than three times the rate of young adults with incomes at or above 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Of the 10.4 million currently uninsured young adults ages 19 to 29, 45 percent would gain coverage through the law’s Medicaid-expansion provision.

In states that refuse Medicaid expansion, some low-income young adults may find coverage through their employers, but many will remain uninsured. Because policymakers planned for low-income young adults to gain coverage through Medicaid, eligibility for the law’s tax credits and other financial assistance to make the purchase of health insurance more affordable does not extend to young adults below the poverty level.

Conclusion

Those concerned about the prospect of young people lacking access to affordable health care coverage should focus on Medicaid expansion instead of the risk of higher premiums in the nongroup market. Only 3 percent of all young adults could face higher premiums in the individual market. Moreover, with this minimal increase in premium costs come significantly greater benefits. Meanwhile, a substantial number of states have threatened to reject or have already rejected Medicaid expansion, a much more concrete concern that leaves those young adults most in need of affordable health care without any options.

Maura Calsyn is the Associate Director for Health Policy at the Center for American Progress. Lindsay Rosenthal is the Research Assistant for Health Policy and Women’s Health and Rights at the Center.

The authors thank The Commonwealth Fund for providing the Census data for this brief.

“I am gay, and God doesn’t love me anymore,” Pietrus’ son told him. Pietrus, a devout Catholic, didn’t know how to react, and didn’t acknowledge that his son was gay for a long time.

“That’s not pretty. And it wasn’t the right thing to do,” Pietrus said. “I don’t want any parent to do what I did.”

Today, Pietrus heads up Always Our Children, a support program for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their loved ones at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in Raleigh, N.C.

He spoke on April 18 at “Food for Thought: Finding the intersection between the LGBTQ and Catholic communities,” a discussion hosted by the University of North Carolina's Newman Catholic Student Center.

The support group’s message is that you cannot be unbaptized: Your gifts are valued and you are welcome in the Catholic community regardless of your sexual orientation, as expressed in the 1998 U.S. bishops pastoral letter for which the support group is named.

The 1998 pastoral letter says, “Generally, homosexual orientation is experienced as a given, not as something freely chosen. By itself, therefore, a homosexual orientation cannot be considered sinful, for morality presumes the freedom to choose.” Its basis is the doctrine of human dignity, which says that every human life has inherent value.

“Homosexual people are created by God, loved by God, and should be honored and respected,” Rev. Monsignor John Wall from the Newman Center said.

St. Francis of Assisi acknowledges this more than other churches. In addition to hosting All Our Children, the church has had an active LGBTQ ministry for more than a decade.

Cathy Dodlinger, an active member of St. Francis, has been with her partner, Jane, for 20 years.

“If I had to leave the Catholic Church, it would have to be the saddest moment of my life,” she said. But it’s still not easy to be Catholic and gay (or Catholic and progressive).

Recently, Dodlinger went to another parish where a priest gave “a nasty homily” condemning homosexuality.

And although the Catholic church welcomes homosexuals as they are, it still says it’s against church teaching for LGBTQ people to have sex, in large part because Catholics shouldn’t have sex before marriage. The answer to this problem seems pretty obvious, but Catholic bishops have hardly been at the forefront of the fight for marriage equality. Last year, bishops of both North Carolina dioceses came out in support of Amendment One, which put a ban against gay marriage and domestic partnerships in the North Carolina constitution.

So the Catholic Church is hardly a leader in LGBTQ rights, and more of a reflection of progress made by society as a whole.

But considering its mammoth worldwide membership, that’s something.

Students at the event had mixed reactions to Pietrus and Dodlinger’s message. One student spoke about a beloved gay uncle.

“I can’t tell him his past homosexual lifestyle is right,” he said. But later, after hearing Pietrus talk more he changed his mind. “Who the hell am I to judge anyone else?”

This article originally appeared in Campus BluePrint a student publication at the University of North Carolina that receives funding and training as a member of the Campus Progress journalism network.

Polling strongly suggests that the American public would prefer higher levels of spending on higher education. A Brookings Institution/Northeastern University poll conducted in October 2012, for example, found that 70 percent of the public felt that a college education is very or extremely important for achieving the American Dream, with an additional 24 percent saying it is somewhat important. Not surprisingly, the poll found that 81 percent of Americans believe the government needs to invest more in America’s higher education system. Other polls show similarly high figures: The General Social Survey, for example, a longstanding academic survey, finds that 72 percent of Americans support spending more on education.

So if the public wants more education spending, why hasn’t the government been more responsive and boosted spending?

Undoubtedly, increased pressure on state budgets has contributed to the 28 percent reduction in state spending on higher education since the Great Recession began in December 2007. But other factors are also at work.

States can choose what to spend money on and at what level to set taxes, and thus have some ability to prioritize higher education over other demands. Indeed, two states—North Dakota and Wyoming—have actually increased spending on higher education since the Great Recession began. And in states that have reduced spending on higher education, cuts range from a low of just 3 percent to a high of 50 percent.

There are many reasons for these differences, including state income levels and demographics, but one underappreciated reason is the declining political clout of the middle class and the growing influence of the affluent. As incomes for the middle class have stagnated and those for the top 1 percent of Americans have exploded over recent decades, the political power of the rich relative to the broad middle class has consequently increased. As a host of studies show, in an increasingly unequal America the voices of the rich carry great weight with politicians, but the desires of the middle class are often ignored.

When push comes to shove, education spending generally isn’t as important for the wealthy as it is for the middle class. As a result, the United States spends less than the general public—and the middle class—would prefer.

Certainly the wealthy often support spending on public education, but the intensity of their support for education spending is far less than that of the middle class. That’s because the rich have greater ability to send their children to private colleges, while the middle class depends more upon public universities.

And compared to the middle class, the rich are much more concerned with keeping taxes low than with paying for public education. Indeed, as Princeton University political scientist Martin Gilens found in his study of nearly 2,000 poll questions, the wealthy are “much less supportive of taxes and government spending” than the middle class.

A groundbreaking poll of very rich Americans, roughly the top 1 percent of wealth holders, highlighted how the preferences of the wealthy and the middle class diverge on education. The authors—political scientists Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels, and Jason Seawright from Northwestern University and Vanderbilt University—found that only 28 percent of the wealthy agreed that the government should “make sure that everyone who wants to go to college can do so,” compared to the 78 percent of the general public that agreed. Similarly, only 35 percent of the wealthy felt that the “government should spend whatever is necessary to ensure that all children have really good public schools they can go to,” compared to 87 percent of the general public.

When the wealthy have more power, their preferences are more likely to prevail. This is clear when analyzing spending on education across the 50 states.

A simple look at the data shows that states with strong middle classes spend more on higher education. Figures 1 and 2 show that the 10 states with the strongest middle classes—defined by the share of income going to the middle 60 percent of households—spent more on higher education, both as a share of the budget and gross domestic product, or GDP. In 2010 the 10 states with the strongest middle classes the year before spent, on average, 10.5 percent of their budget and 2.05 percent of their GDP on higher education. In contrast, the 10 states with the weakest middle classes averaged expenditures of 8.8 percent of their budget and 1.53 percent of their GDP.

Critically, these results hold even when controlling for other factors that influence education spending.

Specifically, in a regression analysis that controls for other factors that affect education spending, such as state income levels, the share of the population comprised of people of color, and the age distribution of the state, states with stronger middle classes spend more—as a share of their economy and of their budget—on education. We find that a 1 percentage-point increase in the share of income going to the middle 60 percent of income earners is associated with a 0.1 percentage-point increase in the share of the state’s budget spent on higher education and a 0.015 percentage-point increase in the share of the state’s GDP spent on higher education in the next year.

These results are consistent with a more detailed report we wrote in November 2011 on elementary and secondary education, “Middle-Class Societies Invest More in Public Education.” Those interested in on our methodology and data can consult the appendix of that report for more details.

The economic future of the United States is intrinsically tied to the future of American education. In the era of heightened global competition, the United States needs to make sure that all of its citizens are prepared to seize the economic opportunities of the future. Ensuring the American population is well educated is vital to that effort.

Just as the need for a well-educated workforce is highest, however, the United States appears to be failing in this effort. While other countries have worked to ensure that their citizens have become more educated, education levels in the United States have stagnated in recent decades, and part of that stagnation is because we are underinvesting in education.

As of 2010 about 41 percent of Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had at least a college degree, while the college-educated share of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 was only slightly higher at roughly 42 percent, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This small difference means that the United States has not made significant increases in college attainment in recent decades.

Compare this stagnation in college attainment to the large gains made by our neighbor to the north, Canada, whose middle class has remained relatively strong. Similar to the American population, about 42 percent of Canadians between the ages of 55 and 64 had at least a college degree as of 2010. Fifty-six percent of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 34, however, had at least a college education—a gain of 14 percentage points. While the United States has stagnated in terms of college-graduation rates, Canada and others have succeeded in furthering the education of their citizens.

Increased access to higher education is often described as one of the remedies for the current historic level of income inequality. But as this analysis shows, the rise in income inequality and the decline of the middle class has skewed public policy toward the wishes of the rich and contributed to underinvestment in higher education. This suggests that strengthening the middle class will require not only policies that directly help the middle class—such as investments in education—but also political reforms to ensure that the voice of the middle class is heard.

David Madland is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Nick Bunker is a Research Assistant with the Economic Policy team at the Center.

The new short film The Red, which premiered around the country earlier this month, isn't just trying to scare viewers. It's trying to remind them that the $1 trillion student loan debt crisis in America is a real reason to be afraid.

As we've reported, student debt is serious and affects nearly 15 million Americans under the age of 30, but few students and recent grads even know how much they owe. Like the young woman in The Red, they are trying to hide from their debt because it's too scary to face.

The Red is a project of the non-profit American Student Assistance (ASA), which helps students with budgeting and understanding their repayment and student loans.

“It isn't easy to get young people who feel panicked about their debts to do something about it,” said Sue Burton from ASA. “To connect meaningfully with them, we produced something very entertaining that acknowledges how frightening it can be, yet portrays their own power and offers a path out of the nightmare."

The filmmakers involved in the The Red have been involved in real horror films including Martha Marcy May Marlene, American Psycho, and The Moth Diaries, but the paralyzing fear of student debt is real to them, too.

“We know exactly how scary it is to owe a ton of money for school and have no clue how to pay it back,” said director Antonio Campos. “This is a story we related to. The feeling of The Red made sense. And we embraced the opportunity to work on this project.”

With projects like The Red, hopefully more students will be armed with knowledge about student debt instead of cowering from their fears in the dark.

Led by Rep. John Kline (R-MN), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, the legislation would allow interest rates to fluctuate based on economic factors, which opponents say could subject borrowers to changes in the market that could be disastrous over time.

"Our families deserve better than this bait-and-switch," Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said, pushing back on the bill.

The bill would "base interest rates for all new federal student loans on the bond market, using the same 10-year Treasury note benchmark that has been proposed by the Obama administration."  If the bond market fluctuates, the bill could turn a greater profit from Stafford loans than the program already makes—meaning borrowers would pay more.

Federal student loan programs already make billions of dollars in profit each year for the United States government. This year, the Obama administration is expected reap $51 billion in profit from student loan borrowers.

"When I went to a state flagship university with government funding for my tuition, I felt valued by my government," Rep. Susan David (D-CA) said during a hearing on the bill. "I don't think our students will feel that way with this bill."

President Obama's budget also included a change to Stafford that would tie rates to the market; however, Obama's budget did not include a cap to prevent rates from soaring too high. The House Republican plan does have a ceiling for the subsidized Stafford loan rate: 8.5 percent. Parent and graduate student loans would be capped at 10.5 percent.

However, the cap may be too high for many students and families.

Using the Congressional Budgetary Office projections for Treasury notes' interest rates each year, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay:

• $8,331 in interest under the House/Kline plan
• $7,284 if rates are allowed to double on July 1
• $3,450 if rates stay the sameover the typical 10 year window to pay the maximum $19,000

Students who rely on both subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans to finance their education would also see a hike in interest payments with the House Republican plan. If subsidized Stafford interest rates double to match their unsubsidized counterpart, this is how they'd be impacted:

• $12,374 in interest under the House/Kline plan
• $10,867 if subsidized loans were allowed to double on July 1
• $7,033 if rates stay the same over the typical 10 year window to play the maximum $27,000 for four years of school.

In support of the bill, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said: "Student loan rates should not be subject to the whims of Congress. Students' families and taxpayers deserve a long-term solution. … This legislation offers predictability and simplicity."

Foxx is the same representative who said last year that she had "little tolerance" for Americans who graduate with thousands of dollars of student loan debt.

Some Senate Democrats want to prevent the interest rate on Stafford from doubling—keeping it at the current 3.4 percent—until a long-term solution can be reached. A more radical approach, proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would give students the "same deal" on Stafford interest rates that big banks get from the Federal Reserve.

Gillibrand introduced the proposal during a press conference in New York City on Sunday. Her legislation would allow borrowers with federal loans carrying interest rates higher than 4 percent to refinance down to 4 percent. The majority of federal student loan dollars disbursed this year carry interest rates higher than 6.8 percent, according to the Education Department.

Other types of debt have benefitted from lower interest rates, too: the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 3.5 percent, according to Think Progress.

“At a time when corporations, homeowners, and even local governments are refinancing at historically low interest rates and saving millions of dollars, students and families who take out loans to pay for college are getting left behind," Gillibrand said, according to the Huffington Post, which covered the press conference. "Ensuring that our graduates are not saddled with unmanageable debt by keeping interest rates low is just common sense."

In recent months, experts from various industries have warned of the holistic toll the collective $1.1 trillion in education debt held by borrowers could have on the struggling economy. At a Consumer Financial Protections Bureau hearing held this month, student debt was said to have leaning "domino effect" that could leave neighboring markets that scaffold middle class-living like homes and cars struggling to find its next generation of consumers.

“I hope to one day have a family, buy a house, and pay for my child's education—but with interest rates where they are, I have no ability to save,” Alex Newman, a New York City teacher, said at the press conference with Gillibrand. Newman said he has about $20,000 in federal student loans.

According to the Center for American Progress, our parent organization, Gillibrand's bill would save borrowers about $14.5 billion in the first year, which would inject about $21.7 billion into the U.S. economy.

Gillibrand joins a growing band of Senate Democrats who are paying more attention to student loan interest rates—both in the short and long-term. Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Jack Reed (D-RI) proposed a bill last week that would extend the cap on Stafford loan interest rates for two years to provide some elbow room to deal with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

And Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposed that the Federal Reserve give student loan borrowers the "same deal" they give big banks on interest rates for two years, another effort to give Congress time to pass more meaningful legislation to address the student debt crisis.

Last week, it was reported that the Department of Education will reap a $50 billion profit from education loan borrowers—more than oil giant Exxon Mobil.

"Corporate entities, homeowners, and many others have been able to refinance debt at quite low rates, and student loan borrowers are wondering why they can't do the same," Rohit Chopra, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s top student loan official, previously said in regards to allowing student loan borrowers to refiance.

"Allowing borrowers to refinance their student loans is a critical first step to solving the student debt crisis," Campus Progress Director Anne Johnson said earlier this year, launching the It's Our Interest campaign. "As we start this new campaign, we call on the White House, Congress, and federal agencies to release their own proposals so we can make this happen and bring relief to millions of Americans and their families."

Maybe a student housing cooperative is for you. From 1,300 people in a series of homes at UC-Berkeley, to smaller groups in places like Chicago, Buffalo, and Athens, Ohio, students and other Americans across the country are taking housing into their own hands.

Co-ops are “owned by their members through a group equity or zero equity model” in which students are “members of an organization that collectively owns the property,” according to Morgan Crawford, director of educational programs at North American Students of Cooperation, a group that supports cooperative housing.

"It’s a good alternative to dorm living or the sort of slumlord-style predatory housing market that most students get involved in,” Crawford said.

One of the obvious potential benefits is budgetary.

“Cooperatives aren’t trying to make money off of everyone,” Crawford said. With no surplus needed for a landlord's profits, students in housing co-ops can keep costs down.

Other, perhaps more potent advantages can’t be measured in dollars and cents. If we accept the premise that the typical buyer-seller relationship is inherently undemocratic—for instance, a renter has no control over their housing situation except what is specifically granted to them in their lease—then a co-op offers students greater self-control.

“Instead of students paying large sums of money to live in a dorm where they have no control over what happens, who they live with, how they’re governed, et cetera,” said Crawford, co-ops put students in the driver’s seat.

While the specific methods vary, the idea is that students use a democratic process to set rents, decide what repairs are needed, and figure out who is responsible for which chores. They can even sell their house if they so choose, Crawford said. (But not to cash out—the money would be held by the co-op as part of the zero equity structure.)

Crawford lived in several housing co-ops during his college years, and came away singing their praises. They were “powerful personal experiences in building community, creating the community and the spaces that I want, having ownership over my life and my spaces,” he said.

This post is the first in a series on life in cooperative student housing. Next up: the economic advantages and pitfalls of co-ops.

The Hulu Exclusive show deals with the lives and loves of teens at a high school in East Los Angeles, and its all-Latino team of writers, actors and creators set out to make it a way for teens to get a dose of comprehensive sex education alongside their love triangles.

"East Los High" is something new entirely: it's the first English-language drama explicitly for Latino teens, and it also grew out of partnerships with sexual health organizations and Latino advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, Voto Latino and the California Family Health Council.

The coalition advised the show’s creators about everything from integrating conversations about sexuality into their storylines, to what resources their characters could access, to what a doctor at a Planned Parenthood office should wear.

Katie Elmore Mota, the show’s Executive Producer, spoke to Campus Progress about the show's approach to sex-ed, transmedia and the media theories informing the show’s hybrid mix of entertainment and education.

One of those theories is the Sabido methodology, which is based on the work of Miguel Sabido, a Mexican TV producer in the 1970s who began integrating conversations about things like adult literacy and family planning into his hit "telenovelas" and serial dramas.

It’s a model that blends education and entertainment, and it’s the framework "East Los High’s" producer, Population Media Center, applies to their work.

“[We're] always hiring people locally from the countries that we’re working in or the audiences that we’re targeting, because of course the most authentic and real and compelling stories come from within,” Mota said.

Through a “show not tell” approach to talking about sexuality, young motherhood and growing up, the show “allows the audience to learn vicariously through the characters and their experiences,” Mota continued.

The show’s creators are committed to using "East Los High" as a venue to provide teens with realistic and useful information about sex-ed, both within the show’s story arc's and transmedia extensions.

Those transmedia extensions include video blogs run by characters in the show, extended scene recipes and articles from the East Los High Siren, a student newspaper whose content ranges from gossip columns to serious articles talking about sex-ed.

“We really wanted to make sex-ed and talking about sexuality comfortable, because that’s hugely important to making it healthier and to allowing people to make the best decisions for themselves,” Mota said.

Transmedia also allows the show’s creators to go beyond the immediate action of the plot to show the slower-paced scenes that delve into the complexities of the characters’ experiences.

One extended scene shows a character going to a clinic; one video blog features conversations between a pregnant teen and her cousin in Mexico.

As her pregnancy progresses, these conversations begin to show how complicated her relationship to her child is: On some days, she’s overjoyed and discovering new pieces of information about her unborn child, on others, she’s exhausted and frustrated with continuously navigating the stigma and challenges that come from being a young mother.

In representing young motherhood, the show’s creators worked to strike a delicate balance, one where they give teens the information they need to choose not to become pregnant if that’s not what they want, but also steer clear of shaming young teens who choose to become parents.

“Usually, in entertainment, either there’s nothing hard about teen pregnancy, and it just happens, and everything’s cool, or it’s demonized," said Mota. "There tends to not be this real, a little bit more grounded approach."

WATCH the trailer:

“PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS EMAIL,” the email warned receivers, “OR INFORMATION ABOUT OUR MEETING LOCATION FOR THE FLASH MOB.”

The Gainesville chapter was organizing secretly, just like other chapters around the country, for NWL’s Week of Action. Last week, NWL and Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD) staged protests in cities across the nation, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Gainesville, Fla., demanding that women of all ages have over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.

Judy Etzler was among many women and men who gathered on the first floor of a Shands Hospital parking garage in Gainesville on Friday. Though not a member of NWL, “this one was irresistible,” she said.

For as long as she can remember, Etzler has been a feminist: When she first became a part of the work force, women mainly worked as nurses or secretaries, she said. As an act of personal protest, she refused to learn how to type.

While Etzler offered a clipboard to protesters to sign in on Friday, Kendra Vincent, chair of the Gainesville chapter of NWL, gestured for attention. The crowd gathered around her in a pre-protest huddle.

“Change comes from everyday people,” she said to the 50 gathered. “And look at all these everyday people.”

The crowd applauded, bouncing echoes throughout the garage.

Vincent’s directions were clear: small groups will be assigned something to “shop for” and sent into the store. Once protestors hear the chant begin outside, they will converge on the pharmacy and join in the chant. Vincent will make a small speech. They will place their props—small medication boxes doctored to look like Plan B boxes—on the shelf. Then they will leave, chanting once again.

The fight to allow the morning-after pill, has been long, said Stephanie Seguin, NWL leader and plaintiff in a court case to make emergency contraception available without age restrictions.

Seguin said when she went to France, she saw government workers on bikes passing out condoms and emergency contraception.

In 1999., Plan B One-Step was the first emergency contraception approved for prescription use in the U.S. In 2006, it became available over-the-counter for women 18 and older. In 2009, the Federal Drug Administration lowered the age restriction to 17.

In 2011, the FDA approved Plan B One-Step for all women who can potentially become pregnant, following a review by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. However, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, overruled the FDA’s decision, stating that the research did not contain sufficient data to show that young girls could responsibly use the drug. The age restriction remained for those 17 and older.

In early April, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman issued a court order to make Plan B available over-the-counter to women of all ages, rebuking the secretary's decision. The Obama Administration appealed Korman’s order, but lowered the age restriction to 15.

The NWL chapter leaders directed the women and men to enter a CVS in Gainesville in groups of three. Whitney Mutch, a member of NWL, walked into the store with two other women looking for nail polish.

Over the aisles, many familiar heads were beginning to appear. Over the course of a few minutes, the population of the CVS tripled. Regular customers were unfazed; the neutral, canned music maintained a normal shopping experience—until the chanting began.

“What do we want?”

The people in the store picked up the cue, shouting back, “The morning-after pill.”

“Where do we want it?”

“Over-the-counter.”

Mutch and others collected in front of the pharmacy where Vincent gave a speech explaining their demands.

“I am here to put this morning-after pill on the shelf next to condoms,” Vincent said. “For all men and women to buy.”

Vincent and other protesters placed small boxes made to look like emergency contraception on nearby shelves. Then they promptly exited, chanting: “Old enough to get pregnant, old enough to decide.”

“It was inspiring to see so many people,” Mutch said later, as the group debriefed at the Civic Media Center. “It was fantastic, the feeling of sisterhood.”

This article originally appeared in The Fine Print, a student publication at the University of Florida that receives funding and training as a member of the Campus Progress journalism network.
 

Researchers at the Texas State University School of Criminal Justice analyzed 84 shooting events between 2000 and 2010, and found that the frequency of the events is increasing—and that the leading weapon of mass shooters was the pistol, followed by the rifle and the shotgun.

"In the wake of the tragic active shooter attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, police administrators are struggling both to respond to their citizens’ concerns and to ensure that their departments are prepared should an attack happen in their jurisdictions," reads the report [PDF]. "It is our hope that the information contained here will provide police administrators with the data needed to base their active shooter preparations on empirical evidence."

The data paints a picture of diverse, bloody encounters, with a median of four individuals shot and two deaths per episode.

While some shooters surrender or commit suicide before law enforcement arrive, others engage "aggressively" with the police, with one in five incidents further complicated by taking place in open, outdoor spaces.

Out of the three cases in which armed bystanders ended the confrontation by shooting the attacker, two were by off-duty police officers and one was by a US marine. However, report author J. Pete Blair disputes easy conclusions about the role of bystanders in halting mass shootings.

"While armed civilian intervention has been rare, it has occurred and stopped events," he said. "Arguments can easily be made either way and will primarily be driven from ideological starting points."

Early tracking suggests that mass shootings have continued to increase in frequency since 2010, Blair said.

Mass shootings are still a minor threat compared to other types of shooting deaths.

According to the FBI, mass shootings in 2010 accounted for less than one percent of homicide victims.