ABSTRACT

This chapter analyzes three recent student-led social movements that address issues in higher education. The first two center on the reaction to increasing student debt and proposed tuition hikes at universities across Canada and the United States. The third mobilization focuses on the supporters of the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAMers), which is a movement that consists of students without proper citizenship status who are challenging federal and state laws that prohibit them from obtaining most types of financial assistance to attend college. Social movement theories that focus primarily on the political environment cannot adequately assess the emergence of the DREAMers and the tactics they used in the early part of the campaign. Political process theory is also relevant in assessing the latter part of the struggle as the political context shifted for the DREAMers after Barack Obama's re-election in 2012.