Three weeks after visiting the White House to hear President Barack Obama’s speech on student loan interest rates, GUSA executives Nate Tisa (SFS ’14) and Adam Ramadan (SFS ’14) heeded the president’s call to action and delivered letters to Congressional offices today as the culmination of an advocacy campaign against the doubling of student loan interest rates.

The letter, signed by 110 student body presidents who represent more than 1 million students from 38 states and the District of Columbia, urges Congress to come to a bipartisan solution by July 1 that keeps rates low, ensures simple repayment options and reinvests cost savings back into financial aid. If Congress does not act in time, student loan interest rates are set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent next month.

The Georgetown University Student Association executives also delivered an open petition that was signed by 211 people and have been encouraging Georgetown students to take action on their own by contacting their representatives.

“This is an issue that affects students everywhere, so our message and our advocacy has been at the nationwide level,” Tisa said. “My view of GUSA is that it doesn’t have a role in the national political debates, but when it comes to this issue, we have a responsibility to represent students.”

Tisa and Ramadan began their campaign locally by reaching out to student governments at The George Washington University and the University of Virginia. GUSA then partnered with the National Campus Leadership Council, a coalition of nearly 150 student governments.

“I think there were a lot of people looking around and looking for ways to advocate and looking for ways to make a change. I think what really forced it was our location. I can walk to Congress and do this,” Tisa said. “We really have a unique geographical position and a unique culture of political activity that I think was the spark.”

On Wednesday, the Associated Press published a draft of a proposed bipartisan compromise that would see interest rates rise slightly to 3.8 percent. Tisa said that he was happy to see the proposal and that he is optimistic that Congress will act before the rate hikes July 1.

“It’s very promising to see a lot of the bipartisan work that is going on because it needs to be a bipartisan effort,” Tisa said. “This isn’t a partisan issue: It’s students, it’s everyone’s children, it’s across the nation and it should it be treated like that, and I think you are starting to see it being looked at in that way.”

The GUSA executives have received national attention for their efforts, which have been picked up by The Huffington Post and Fox News. Tisa was interviewed on ABC News this morning, and he said he hopes to use the national media coverage to get more student governments to sign on.

University President John J. DeGioia also joined the conversation and called for Congress to act on radio station WAMU 88.5 on Sunday.

“The American dream has been built on the transformative power of higher education. We, as a people, have always honored our responsibility to protect and nurture our young,” DeGioia said on WAMU. “It is important that our elected representatives recognize, with the clock ticking, that gridlock is not an excuse for our students to go even deeper in debt.”

Tisa said he is pleased that GUSA has been able to achieve the goals it set out for itself so far this summer.

“I’ve been so happy and emboldened, and I felt so empowered by the fact that we were able to build the coalition like we have,” he said.