The underlying purpose of the Secular Student Alliance is to bring about a society in which the ideals of critical and scientific inquiry, secularism, and human based ethics flourish. Whereas many other organizations already exist to spread these values to adult populations, the SSA focuses on fostering these values among high school and college students.

Our mission is to organize, unite, educate and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific rationality, secularism, democracy, and human based ethics. Specifically, we seek to support students and student communities that seek:

1. To educate student activists to effectively run freethought organizations.
   
   
2. To raise student awareness of issues of importance to the freethought community and the benefits of freethought.
   
   
3. To educate the public and our own communities about the civil rights of atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers.
   
   
4. To defend the right of freethinking students to organize, meet and promote their views on high school and college campuses.
   
   
5. To foster a cooperative environment where the freethought community works together to achieve shared goals.
   
   
6. To influence existing communities such that, and create new communities in which, atheists, agnostics, skeptics, humanists and other freethinkers feel comfortable in their views.
   
   
7. To educate the public and our own communities about the value of reason, science, critical thinking, skepticism, and openness to new ideas.
   
   
8. To defend high education standards, especially when attacked by proponents of irrationality.
   
   
9. To educate the public and our own communities about the value of human based ethics and compassion.
   
   
10. To promote and encourage thoughtful and critical attitudes toward superstition, supernatural claims, pseudoscience and the paranormal.
    
    
11. To promote positive and correct ideas about non-religious lifestyles.
    
    
12. To raise critical awareness of religious extremism.
    
    
13. To educate the public and our own communities about religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
    
    
14. To educate the public and our own communities about the value of respecting people regardless of their religious views and learning to cooperate and coexist with them.

Other Key Issues Addressed by the SSA:

The following issues, while not a matter of universal agreement among freethinkers as appropriate areas of attention in a freethought group, are areas of concern that the SSA will on occasion address in its official statements, policies, actions and educational initiatives.

• Defending religious liberty and freedom of conscience
• Defending universal human rights
• Promoting responsible and informative sex education
• Protecting the freedom of speech and opposing censorship
• Fighting racism and other forms of intolerance
• Promoting equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered people and others with alternative lifestyles
• Protecting the global environment
• Advocating sustainable population levels and the prudent use of natural resources
• Defending reproductive freedom
• Working for women's rights and equality worldwide
• Promoting awareness of and finding solutions to fundamental social problems
• To defend individual freedoms and civil liberties for all persons, regardless of race, sex, class, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, etc.