The beer-soaked streets leading to Jackson Square in this city’s historic French Quarter bustled on Monday evening with characteristic revelry – and a short-lived, if chaotic, debate over student loan debt.
"They’re coming," a face-painted man in a full-body alligator costume yelled from his bicycle. "They’re two blocks away."
With that warning, several dozen student activists, staged strategically at a corner bar, finished their drinks, gathered their protest signs, and geared up for action.
The target? Hundreds of college financial aid officers who were parading -- complete with Mardi Gras beads, marching band and police escort -- through the French Quarter to celebrate the end of the second day of their annual gathering here.
"No cuts, no fees, education should be free," the protesters from the Occupy-inspired Student Debt Collective chanted in repetition, throwing fake money at the financial aid officers and interrupting their parade with music.
The protest, which lasted less than an hour, came during the annual meeting of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, known as NASFAA. What is usually a wonkish conference filled with sessions on the mechanics of Education Department data systems, the intricacies of federal student aid regulations and best practices for running financial aid offices was enlivened by the Debt Collective’s physical and social media demonstrations here.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/21/student-debt-protesters-crash-annual-gathering-college-financial-aid-officers