SGA President Andrew Rose visited George Washington University in Washington yesterday to speak at a United States Student Association press conference against a financial aid bill, despite his vow to focus primarily on campus issues.

Rose, who attended the conference along with student leaders from seven other Washington-area colleges and universities, represented this university.

The students spoke out against the College Access and Opportunity Act, that proposes changes to the current Higher Education Act.

The HEA, first passed in 1965, is the lone piece of legislation that governs all federal financial aid programs and graduate fellowships funded by the federal government.

In April 2005, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce decided to cut about $9 billion from student loan programs provided by the HEA. If the College Access and Opportunity Act were passed, the USSA claims the average student borrower would be forced to pay an additional $5,800 in loan repayment.

Rose says it was the USSA that notified him of the event. “I didn’t know about it until I was asked to be involved,” he said. However, he explained that once he heard about the event, he felt a responsibility to participate.

Last week, Rose announced that issues concerning the University Senate and the city council would be lower on his agenda than priorities such as crime. Last year, in his campaign platform and presidency, he criticized former Student Government Association President Aaron Kraus’s media-friendly behavior and constant lobbying in Annapolis for state issues. However, he doesn’t think his involvement in a press conference concerning a national issue is a contradiction to this platform.

“I don’t believe a press conference is a media stunt – a media stunt is jumping on top of a Pinto or having a hunger strike,” Rose said, criticizing prior SGA Presidents Tim Daly and Kraus, respectively. “I said from the beginning, I’m not going to engage in a media stunt, and I’m not. A media stunt [is] designed to produce some sort of attack. We’re not attacking anyone.”

Contact reporter Roxana Hadadi at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.