It was founded at a conference in 1980[1] as a merger of the Revolutionary Student Brigade, the Midwest Coalition against Registration and the Draft (Mid-CARD), and the Student Coalition Against Nukes Nationwide (SCANN).
The PSN quickly grew and attracted many new progressive student activist groups motivated to protest against the shift to the right in U.S. politics when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980.
Through the 1980s and into the early 1990s the PSN worked on many issues including organizing against U.S. military intervention in the Central American countries of Nicaragua and El Salvador (the PSN supported the Sandinistas and the FMLN); organizing to kick the CIA off university campuses; the movement against apartheid in South Africa; organizing against the ROTC presence on college campuses; defending women's reproductive rights; and others.
PSN groups also led numerous struggles against instances of racism, sexism and homophobia that came up on their campuses.
In the 1990s it was published by the University of Wisconsin - Madison Progressive Student Network chapter.