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Welcome to the Students section of Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances. This is the place where you will learn about the challenges facing the federal budget, one of the most serious long-term problems confronting the nation. Here you can have your voice heard as you explore choices on what can be done to fix this.

You probably know the total of your student loans, and how much you owe on your credit cards. Now add $175,000 to that. That's your share of more than $10 trillion in U.S. national debt and another $42 trillion in unfunded federal liabilities (largely for promised future Medicare and Social Security benefits).

Right now, the government has no plan to cover these costs – and if nothing is done, by 2040 every tax dollar the government has will be spent on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the money we've borrowed.

The debt is going to drag down the economy and constrain what government can do, and you'll be looking at either paying a lot more taxes or getting a lot less for the taxes you do pay.

Students Face Up is bringing classes around the country together to talk about this problem.  There are solutions, and this is the place to learn about them.

• Student Assignment and Contest Flyer [6]
  

• Students Face Up Fall 2008 Contest rules and entry instructions [6]
  
  
• Medicare, Medicaid, and Controlling Health Care Costs [7]
  A Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances discussion guide
  
  
• Social Security, the Budget, and an Aging Population [8]
  A Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances discussion guide
  
  
• Making Sure our Government Manages our Money Responsibly [9]
  A Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances discussion guide
  
  
• Can We Bring More Fairness to the Tax System AND Make Revenues Match Spending? [10]
  A primer on taxes and other sources of federal revenue
  
  

Other Places You Can Find Our Classroom Materials

Students Face Up curriculum materials are also available to the public through iTunes University [10], and to members of the America's Future Scholars program [10] on Epsilen.

Budget Hero, a game in which players get a crack at balancing the federal budget, from American Public Media [11]

An Introduction to Facing Up to the Nation's Finances [14]

• I.O.U.S.A.: The Byte-Sized Version [16]
  

• State and Local Governments: Growing Fiscal Challenges Will Emerge during the Next 10 Years [23] (Govermment Accountability Office, 2008)
  

• The Long-Term Fiscal Outlook is Bleak [24], by Korgan, Richard, et al. (Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2007)
  A liberal approach to solving the fiscal problem
  
  
• Solutions to Our Long-Term Fiscal Challenges [25], by Stuart Butler (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 2007)
  A conservative approach to solving the fiscal problem

• Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2005 [26], edited by Alice Rivlin and Isabel Sawhill (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2005)
  

• A Glossary of Terms Used in the Federal Budget Process [27] (Government Accountability Office, 2005)

• American Association of Community Colleges [43]
  
  
• AARP [44]
  
  
• American Democracy Project of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities [45]
  
  
• Association for Budgeting and Financial Management [46]
  
  
• Association of Young Americans [47]
  
  
• Brookings Institution [48]
  
  
• Committee for Economic Development [49]
  
  
• Concord Coalition [50]
  
  
• Generations United [51]
  
  
• Heritage Foundation [52]
  
  
• Journalism Center on Children and Families [53]
  
  
• Mobilize.org [54]
  
  
• National Academy of Public Administration
  
  [55]
• National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration [56]
  
  
• Partnership for Public Service [57]
  
  
• Roosevelt Institution [58]