Catharine Bellinger (left) and Alexis Morin.
Frustrated with the pace of educational change, Bellinger and Morin started Students for Education Reform (SFER) while they were undergraduates at Princeton in 2009. They set out to mobilize college students and get them to advocate for education reform in the voting booth and in state capitols. SFER has obviously tapped into something potent because the organization has grown to 71 chapters in 28 states. And its efforts to impact public policy aren’t just ivory tower talk. In 2011 SFER member Andrew Blumenfeld won a seat on the La Canada, Calif., school board while he was still a junior at Princeton, and SFER has put together a heavy-hitting board of directors and is raising money at a pace any organization would envy. SFER is growing so fast that Bellinger and Morin have, ironically, put their own education on hold so they can work full-time on it heading into 2012.