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Michael French
Dr. Brian Bailie
ENGL 1001
Waking Up and Taking Charge
The passage “Waking Up and Taking Charge” is written by Anya Kamenetz. The focus
of this passage is to inform young adults about the extreme financial issues we face and what
steps are necessary to fix these issues.
In this passage Kamenetz starts by listing some of the financial hardships that young
adults are facing which include college debt due to high tuition rates, credit laws, and lack of
higher education funding. Kamenetz explains that we need a large generational political
movement if we ever hope to make any progress in any of these topics. The first example given
is a sit in at Yale University. Fifteen undergraduate students sat in the administration offices until
removed by police. The students wanted the university to change its financial aid policy to be
more like other Ivy League schools. Just one week after the sit in Yale announced that they
would no longer be expecting financial contribution from families that have an income of forty
five thousand dollars or less. This is a small scale example of how political activism is effective
and is necessary if we want to change the way our government is doing things.
Kamenetz then addresses credit card debt. A vocal activist movement could bring the
issue to light. A twenty nine percent annual interest rate is turning our generation into nothing
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but victims of corporate greed. The only way to get these rates to a more manageable and realist
level is to organize a movement so that the governing bodies can hear our demands for help.
Kamenetz then points out that over the last four decades college students are among the
top political activists in the country but they seem to focus on topics like world peace and
environmental preservation rather than the financial issues that are crippling our generation.
Kamenetz follows this up by explaining how political student groups are making changes in
other countries like the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, or CASA. We do have a
group like this here in the states called the United States Student Association but they are not
nearly as organized or effective as their Canadian counterparts. Kamenetz then ends with the
involvement of the group Virginia 21 and how this is a good step in the right direction for our
generation.
These issues are very real and something needs to be done in order to keep our generation
from being set up for failure like we have been in recent years. I support this passage completely
for the following reasons.
In the Yale demonstration the students wanted to convince the governing body that
handles financial aid to change their policies. This was accomplished when the students came
together, organized a plan, and executed the plan to perfection. This kind of organized political
movement is a smaller version of the movement Kamenetz is hoping to encourage with this
passage. In paragraph six Kamenetz states that an effective student movement should be
organized state by state. I believe this to be true. The demonstration at Yale was great but those
students are a very small fraction of the students nationwide in public and state schools. There
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are many different laws state to state regarding tuition and financial aid so I feel that a federal
organization would be most effective with a branch in each state that can focus on state oriented
issues while the federal branch covers issues regarding FAFSA and other federal student issues.
As far as credit card interest rates are concerned, I understand that these companies are in
business to make money and I cannot fault them for that. However, there is a difference between
being profitable and being greedy. Twenty nine percent is an outrageous number. Most large
scale purchases at that rate would mean you are paying way more than the ticketed amount. A
$1000 purchase would cost you just over $1300 but only if you were able to pay it off in a single
year.
Lastly, political student groups are a great idea. Kamenetz makes very good points about
how the involvement of such organizations within our government can help to make these
positive changes that she has deemed necessary for the preservation of our generation. We have
seen the success that CASA has had in Canada and we should be trying to mimic these efforts
here in the United States. However, we also have to maintain checks and balances within the
organization to avoid corruption.
In conclusion, I agree with Anya Kanenetz in many ways. This article is written in a
mostly pathos tone. She plays on the emotion of fear to persuade the readers to agree with her
ideas and concepts. She also touches on ethos a bit when she is talking about the credit card
interest rate issues. She then uses a logos approach when talking about the student organizations
because she is supplying facts and information that she has gathered through research to support
her claim. She has me convinced that changes need to be made but now my question is how?