According to a recently published investigative report, leftist interest groups are secretly playing a major role at many American Universities, often funded in part by mandatory student fees.

According to a report by the Capital Research Center, “public interest research groups” are playing a silent yet major role at many major American universities. The report makes the case that these interest groups use universities and their students to advance a progressive partisan agenda.

Public interest research groups often raise funds via dishonest or deceitful methods. For example, many groups are funded by mandatory student fees. According to the report, the New York Public Interest Research Group has been able to raise $1 million each year from mandatory student fees.

As David Seidemann, an environmental science professor at Brooklyn College, wrote in 2016: “administrators at public universities across the country have granted [the PIRGs] unique campus privileges and funneled millions of dollars—in part, from mandatory student fees.” As a result, the New York chapter of PIRG (NYPIRG) now “raises more money than all other campus student groups and surreptitiously diverts those funds to its statewide lobbying operations”—as much as $1 million forcibly raised from the pockets of college students each year.

Many of these groups are using these funds to promote a partisan political agenda, such as the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. This group, which was founded in 1972, utilizes its resources on campuses to encourage young college students to support Democratic candidates for public office.

MASSPIRG is one of the largest and oldest state PIRGs, created in 1972. It markets itself as “an independent voice for consumers” and has lobbied for various environmentalist policies, including a plan to run the University of Massachusetts system with 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. It took credit in 2015 for the scheduled shutdown of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant, has called for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and regularly performs voter registration and mobilization drives on college campuses intended to turn out young voters to support Democratic Party candidates.

Students and their families deserve the right to know where exactly their money is going when they pay mandatory student fees. Students should demand transparency from their universities on all matters that involve third-party interest groups.

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