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United States Student Association
PredecessorNational Student Association and the National Student Lobby
FoundedAugust 1978; 46 years ago (1978-08)
Defunct2017; 7 years ago (2017)
TypeStudent lobbying organization
Location
Area served
United States

The United States Student Association (USSA) was an American national student advocacy association. It was founded in 1978, and failed to elect new leadership in 2017. "Years of membership decline, restructuring of grantmaking portfolios in large private foundations, and toxic infighting" led to its operational collapse;[1][2] tax returns continued to be filed in subsequent years.[3][4]

The organization was born in August 1978 during a joint meeting between the National Student Association (NSA), formed in 1947,[5] and the National Student Lobby (NSL), itself originally born of a split in 1971 with the NSA.[6] The membership of both organizations voted overwhelmingly to merge due to overlapping lobbying work and student government-based membership.[7][3] The merger saw the NSL absorbed by the NSA, and the NSA renamed as the USSA, no new entity was created.[8]

By the mid-1980s, the USSA met annually in Washington, D.C., with several hundred students attending.[9]

In the early 1990s, the USSA advocated on behalf of students being eligible for credit cards and beginning to build credit.[10] It also advocated against rising college tuition costs.[11][12]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Huang, Beth (October 10, 2023). "What DSA Can Learn from Organizational Death In the Student Movement". The Forge. Retrieved Aug 16, 2024.
  2. ^ Patrick, Justin (March 2022). "Student Leadership and Student Government" (PDF). Research in Educational Administration and Leadership. 7 (1): 9. the collapse of the United States Student Association in the late 2010s
  3. ^ a b "United States Student Association". InfluenceWatch. Retrieved Aug 16, 2024.
  4. ^ "United States Student Association". ProPublica. Retrieved Aug 19, 2024.
  5. ^ "United States National Student Association Collection | Berea College Special Collections and Archives Catalog". berea.libraryhost.com. Berea College. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  6. ^ Johnston, J. Angus (2009). "The United States National Student Association: Democracy, Activism, and the Idea of the Student, 1947–1978" (PDF). City University of New York.
  7. ^ Johnston, Angus. "A Brief History of NSA and USSA". United States Student Association. Archived from the original on Nov 8, 2023.
  8. ^ Johnston 2009 "Formally the merger was accomplished by absorbing NSL into NSA — the delegates to the conference amended NSA’s governing documents, rather than creating a new entity. They banned proxy voting in the new group, after nodding to NSL’s sensitivities by requiring that legislative stands be approved by a 60% super-majority vote in the plenary. And they gave the new organization its new name — The United States Student Association."
  9. ^ Gailey, Phil; Weaver Jr., Warren (March 16, 1985). "BRIEFING; The Students Are Coming". The New York Times.
  10. ^ de Witt, Karen (Aug 26, 1991). "Using Credit Cards, Students Learn a Hard Lesson". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Crawford, Philip (Oct 5, 1993). "The Solid-Gold U.S. Diploma". International Herald Tribune – via The New York Times.
  12. ^ "Price of Higher Education Becomes Even Dearer". The New York Times. Associated Press. Sep 28, 1994.
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