He was featured in a documentary at the international Sundance Film Festival last month in Utah. Soon, his peers at Penn may be seeing him in theaters nationwide, even at next year's Academy Awards.
College freshman Yoni Gruskin might be a rising movie star - but not for his acting skills.
He's the executive director, co-founder and mastermind of Concerned Youth of America, a national organization devoted to educating college students about the growing national debt and mobilizing them to take a stand.
"If the government continues spending at current levels, we will literally spend ourselves into bankruptcy," said Gruskin, who brought CYA to Penn from its roots at Phillips Academy Andover, an independent boarding high school in Maine.
Without a change in spending, Gruskin continued, the country could be staring into an empty bank account by the year 2040: "That means no money for national defense, no money for education and no money to build infrastructure."
In November, CYA's Penn chapter hosted a National Debt Crisis Forum and a demonstration on Locust Walk, both of which were filmed for the Sundance documentary, called "I.O.U.S.A."
In the film, Gruskin is shown addressing a Penn audience in Logan Hall, as well as picketing in a prison costume on Locust Walk, proclaiming his generation "prisoners of the national debt."
The summer before his senior year in high school, Gruskin developed the CYA idea out of frustration that his own generation
"didn't really have a voice" in the economic burden they would inherit, he said.
He and four other Andover students became that voice in May 2007, when Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill introduced the group at the State House in Boston and Gruskin announced the organization's official launch.
In addition to Cahill, CYA's inauguration came with endorsements from Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, Wharton economist Kent Smetters, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and Henry Zeeve of the Concord Coalition, a national grassroots organization devoted to promoting fiscal responsibility.
"It's been incredible to see how all the established organizations in Washington give us so much respect and treat us as equals on this issue," Gruskin said. "Any professional who deals with this issue understands the importance of putting a real human face to complement the raw numbers."
On a national level, CYA is now developing new chapters, in addition to its existing ones at Harvard, Yale, Duke and Penn. By the end of the academic year, CYA hopes to expand its reach to a total of 10 college campuses nationwide.
Spring plans for the Penn chapter, which is headed by Gruskin and College freshmen Mike Tully and Caroline Matthews, include a "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour" and a spring fair, which the group hopes to host at the Philadelphia Convention Center.
The CYA executive director is pledging the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and playing club lacrosse this spring, but the national debt crisis is what he thinks about most - perhaps the reason a friend created the "Yoni 2028" Facebook group, with 191 proponents of Gruskin's eventual move to the White House.
"We're not dealing with the sexiest topic or the most inspiring topic, but we're sure that we're dealing with the most crucial topic for our generation," Gruskin said.
"For us this isn't just about raw numbers," he added. "It's about our future."
