United States Student Association

National association of students and student associations in the United States

Washington, D.C., U.S.

Area served

United States

The United States Student Association (USSA) was an American 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 and the National Student Lobby. The membership of both organizations voted overwhelmingly to merge due to overlapping lobbying work and student government-based membership.^[5]^[3] (The National Student Lobby itself was originally born of a split with the National Student Association.^[6])

By the mid-1980s, the USSA met annually in Washington, D.C., with several hundred students attending.^[7]

In the early 1990s, the USSA advocated on behalf of students being eligible for credit cards and beginning to build credit.^[8] It also advocated against rising college tuition costs.^[9]^[10]

References

^ Huang, Beth (October 10, 2023). "What DSA Can Learn from Organizational Death In the Student Movement". The Forge. Retrieved Aug 16, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^ 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
^ ^a ^b "United States Student Association". InfluenceWatch. Retrieved Aug 16, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^ "United States Student Association". ProPublica. Retrieved Aug 19, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^ Johnston, Angus. "A Brief History of NSA and USSA". United States Student Association. Archived from the original on Nov 8, 2023.
^ 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.
^ Gailey, Phil; Weaver Jr., Warren (March 16, 1985). "BRIEFING; The Students Are Coming". The New York Times.
^ de Witt, Karen (Aug 26, 1991). "Using Credit Cards, Students Learn a Hard Lesson". The New York Times.
^ Crawford, Philip (Oct 5, 1993). "The Solid-Gold U.S. Diploma". International Herald Tribune – via The New York Times.
^ "Price of Higher Education Becomes Even Dearer". The New York Times. Associated Press. Sep 28, 1994.