Angered UCLA Students Protest Tuition Hike
Thu. 19 2009 | Preston Smith
Hundreds of students at the University of California took to the streets in protest today after the Board of Regents at the university approved a thirty-two percent tuition increase. The protests reflect the growing frustration of students who have to bear the burden of a cash strapped state whose financial woes are largely tied to fiscal irresponsibility.
The university faces an almost 21 billion dollar shortfall over the next year and a half, according to school officials, which have led to the sharp increase in tuition. The average undergraduate fees will increase by $2500 by next fall. The university has already taken other steps, such as cutting 3,800 positions throughout the UCLA system and eliminating courses, to deal with the budget problems.
The noisy protests led to 13 arrests on Wednesday and one today. The California Highway Patrol, armed with bean-bag shooting guns, were called in to assist the campus police in making sure things did not get out of hand. As can be seen from the many videos already posted on Youtube, police were also the ones losing their temper with the disgruntled students.
At one end of campus, a building was chained shut by students, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. The students climbed to the roof of the building and hung black flags over the top in protest.
Though this protest has largely been displayed as peaceful by the media, its more than clear students are increasingly angered with getting the low end of the deal in the economic recession. Mini-tent cities popped up around the university overnight as students from across the state came to join in on the dissent. Large protests such as these at UCLA go to show that America’s youth are still willing to shout at the people in charge when things aren’t going quite right and its not their fault.
Ironic that this should happen just days after our piece What’s Happened to Activism. Some of the images are pretty scary. You can hear people yelling in fear for their friends and the police look like they’re on a short fuse. I’m surprised there haven’t been more incidents – but glad.
A 32% hike is obscene. How many students are going to be forced to curtail their education because of this? Sounds like some of the fat cats in California need to open up their wallets and give, give, give.
Sorry the fat cats are getting rather thin in California, but they’re not really the problem. The problem we have in higher education is related to the wide availability of student loans that obscure the cost by deferring it (kinda like ordering pizza and beer on a credit card instead of having to break the piggy bank… we tend to order extra large and a pitcher rather than a pint). If students said “gee we can’t afford this, we’re not enrolling,” then universities would start looking at ways to lower tuition. Higher education is the only economic sector that has seen costs grow faster and at a higher percentage than health care costs… and it isn’t like we can show folks are getting a better education for their money or even that their schooling will lead to a job that pays enough to pay off the student loans. So my thought is protest is great, but the proposed solution is still the wrong one. This one ain’t being fixed by more government money or fat cats opening their wallets. There needs to be a reassessment of the value proposition.
Working on that right now Robert.
[...] without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C. S. Lewis With the tuition hikes of UCLA getting so much publicity, I thought it would be good to take a moment to explain why college tuition rises. The students of [...]
There’s a couple of response to this. First, there are a substantial portion of Americans, myself included, who would argue that education is a fundamental right. When so many Americans are likewise at the poverty level, unable to finance that education, loans are the only option.
However, paychecks haven’t yet caught up with inflation. Bachelors degrees are no longer good enough for even decent-wage jobs. Two years ago, my best friend graduated from a reputed university with a BS in physics. He got a job in his field making only two dollars more an hour than me (an under-educated hotel front desk receptionist, at the time). My other best friend received her bachelors in psychology, secured a counseling position, and was making a three dollars less than me. And this is an affluent section of Kansas City, that’s barely been touched by the recession. Both were told if they returned to school, they would receive higher wages. Yet most people can’t afford to simply return to school for a masters, never mind a doctorate. And if they can, they definitely can’t afford to pay student loans back. Basically, the only way to pay student loans back is to receive as much education as possible, which means taking longer to pay them back. If we denied them that option, the poverty gap would widen.
The tuition costs are more attributable to top brass college officials demanding insane paychecks for the kickbacks they offer community sources for their involvement. I.e. a successful college professor who earns the title of dean, later brought in as a provost of an outside college because he promises to secure bigger donations from alumni to pay for the new basketball court or gazebo garden. Don’t believe me? Take a good, hard look at the paycheck the decision-makers of UCLA are boasting, and tell me the tuition isn’t, in some way, padding that Those are your fat cats. As colleges have shifted away from being institutions of higher education and into businesses, neither the product nor the problem is truly education.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0911.burd.html
It’s great to see the students protest to the masses on an important issue. Since they have reacted with such drastic measures, they should look forward to a rewarding outcome, but only time will tell.
[...] harder to get to. Well, get ready for some really good news. Interestingly enough, researchers from UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a brilliant way to extract biofuel from [...]