The Nation: California Scheming

[marmar]

California Scheming
By Ben Ehrenreich

November 24, 2009

Los Angeles



It was, as usual, a beautiful day in southern California on November 19, when beneath tall eucalyptus trees and hovering police helicopters, hundreds of students sat cross-legged on the asphalt, blocking the exits to UCLA's Covel Commons. "We can't afford to move!" the students chanted. Inside, protected by riot police armed with Tazers, shotguns and assault rifles, the twenty-six Regents of the University of California had just voted to raise undergraduate tuition by 32 percent. Next year's seniors will be paying almost three times more than students paid ten years ago. Public education just got a lot less public.

If it was too late to prevent the tuition increase, the students were determined not to let the regents leave. "They're waiting for us to clear out, but we're not clearing out," said Rosa Martin, a sophomore who made the trip with a friend from UC's Riverside campus, about seventy miles to the east, in four hours on public buses. Others came from as far north as Berkeley and as far south as San Diego. Mario Zuniga, an environmental engineering major at UC San Diego, spent the night sleeping on the steps of Campbell Hall, which UCLA students occupied on Wednesday night. Three of his classmates, Zuniga said, have already had to leave school because they couldn't keep up with last year's more modest fee increase. "They're taking everything from us and asking for more money," he said.

For Zuniga and others, the fee hikes and this year's budget cuts--the legislature slashed $2.8 billion from the state's once-proud higher education system--mean fewer available classes, overworked instructors, fewer academic support services, a heavier loan burden, more time spent working to pay the bills and less time available for studying. It will also likely mean a far less diverse student body and the gradual abandonment of the state's historic commitment to providing an opportunity at a college education to all its residents. "We can't sit down and let this happen," said UCLA sophomore Stephanie Anyanwu. "We have to shake things up."

At UCLA, some of the regents, at least, appeared well shaken. Escorted out under heavy police guard, they were followed to their cars by angry students yelling, "Shame on you!" The takeover of UCLA's Campbell Hall ended that evening, but by Friday afternoon, it was possible to talk of a "wave of occupations," as UC Davis Professor Joshua Clover put it. Clover, who helped organize the first action to protest faculty and staff pay cuts, a system-wide walkout on September 24, was one of over fifty arrested Thursday night after occupying an administration building on the Davis campus. He spoke to me on the phone from Berkeley, where students took over classrooms in Wheeler Hall early Friday morning and barricaded themselves into the building's second floor until police pushed their way in early that evening. About thirteen hours later, police led forty protesters out of the building and charged them with trespassing. In the meantime, back at Davis, undeterred by the previous day's arrests, students had occupied another administration building. Protesters also took over two buildings at UC Santa Cruz. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/ehrenreich

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. This should surprise no one

The fours years and then graduation has been a bad lie for years. Same with universal access and affordability.

There has been one useful outcome of this. Students who are working to pay their own way clearly want the education. They are not spoiled dilettantes wasting my time and theirs and more importantly filling a seat another covets desperately. It also brings a maturity to the situation including the classroom which was not always there years ago. Working with students who want to learn and are striving for it is nirvana for a teacher at any level.

However, the financial stress being placed on students has a practical limit, and its clear we have passed it. More and more go part time and then drop out when the stress becomes too much. Large student loans are ruinous in the long run. We as a nation (not just CA) have to return to offering affordable higher education.

BTW, I recently compared U of MD with UCLA fees. Scary

[JDPriestly]

2. I worked my way through college.

Because I did, I missed a lot. Students who have to work while attending classes do not have the focus necessary to do their best work academically. They do not have the time they need to participate in extracurricular activities and socialize.

Our universities and colleges are the best part of America. They have for decades been what has drawn the intellectual elite including scientists and artists to our shores. This attack on our universities is the last blow to our economy and seals a dismal fate for our grandchildren. With less excellent universities we will be far less competitive in the future.

There is nothing, I repeat, nothing good about the impoverishment of American universities.