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Your Kaja Silvermans and Teresa De Laurentises aren't going to save you now, UC ilk. The economy knows no bounds, it knows no AP scores, it known no misguided acceptance of one's own body odors. Today, UC students and faculty went on strike. UC Berkeley folks "took up their signs on Sproul Plaza beginning at 5 a.m. to protest an expected 32 percent student fee hike at today's UC Board of Regents meeting."
Angry protesters chanted "no cuts, not peace," the exact same mantra of the 16-year-old goth girl that lives inside of us.
The Daily Californian reports:
The union members were mostly workers from the local chapters of University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), Coalition of University Employees (CUE) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). They also held protests at North Gate, West Gate, East Gate and five university construction sites, forming a picket line around the perimeter of the campus. Union members have elected to strike today and tomorrow.
Not all students, however, are up in arms about the UC budget cuts and staff layoffs.
"I'm still going to school no matter what," quipped lucky sophomore Steve Giahos. "My parents are still going to pay for it."
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Protesting both staff & budget cuts as well as fee hikes seems counter-intuitive. If UC revenue increases with fee hikes, then they will have a higher budget and probably won't have to cut so much staff.
Per semester student fees (including tuition) at Cal are $4800 total for California residents. Even with a 32 percent increae, that's a complete steal. A Top 20 education for under $10,000 a year? Sign me up. Those kids have no clue how good they have it.
As for non-residents, they shell out $32K a year, which isn't chump change. However, as they should just be thankful that the taxpayers of California are gracious enough to let them attend our taxpayer supported UC system and shouldn't get a single dime in subsidy for their out of state asses.
That 32% increase represents $12,288 over the course of four years at school. That's a car or a down payment on a house in most places. If is taken out as loans, servicing them would be about $110 a month, every month for ten years. Not exactly chump change either. I find it galling that people demand students bear a higher and higher burden to receive education which is now essential to finding an occupation capable of supporting a middle class existence.
Actually, the higher tuition for out-of-state students subsidizes the in-state students, which is why the UC system is planning to let more of them in at the expense of in-state admissions. Sorry to bust your little tea-party-style bubble.
Tea-party style bubble? I'm not even sure WTF that is supposed to mean. (Guess all those years I was volunteering for progressive Democratic candidates I was in reality a reactionary right-wing Republican. Who knew?)
As for the $12,000 spread over the four years - I don't see a single unfair thing about that. California residents will STILL be getting access to high-quality college education for a steal. The cost of tuition at a comparable school in most parts of the country would cost much more than that. $110 extra a month for ten years? Cry me a river. My student loans are $750 a month for 20 years. The average college graduate (let alone the average UC-Berkeley graduate) is going to more than make back what they paid in tuition in the earnings differential between what they could expect to earn as a high school graduate and what they will earn as a Cal graduate.
Life is not free - you have to pay for things if you want things in this life.
On top of all that, in college education, the costs one pays is like buying an airline ticket. On the average flight, no two ticket buyers wind up paying the same fare. Its like that in college education - the sticker price is just a maximum price. The average student pays less that when factoring in the total financial aid package students receive which includes various grants, scholarships and tuition reductions offered by the college.
My experience is a case in point. Every year of my four years in college, my parent and I paid something different based on how much my folks home was worth, how much debt they had on it, how much they earned in income for the year, how much I had earned in income for the year, how well I had done in school that year, and probably the phase of the moon the day the financial aid officer reviewed my file.
This still all strikes me as a waaaambulance - especially considered the state of the California budget and economy. We have poor folks on Meidcaid with kids in K-12 - our healthcare system and public K-12 schools need the focus of our scares dollars far more than a bunch of middle- and upper-middle class college students - and based on the competitiveness of a place like Berkeley, that's pretty much who is attending that school to begin with.
your wrong. and a dumby for not considering how expensive HOUSING can be... In LA an apartment is about 1800 a month off campus and living on campus its about 1000 per month give or take a couple hundred dollars. MOST STUDENT MOVE AWAY FROM HOME TO GO TO A UNIVERSITY, THAT ABOUT 12,000 ADDITIONAL DOLLARS YOU ARENT CONSIDERING...PLUS THE EXPENSIVE CAFETERIA PLAN THEY PUT STUDENTS ON. THINK ABOUT THAT...DAMN PUT YOUR SO CALLED EXPENSIVE EDUCATION TO USE AND THINK. Also, the UC students represent the middle and upper class but also the lower. theres tons of students that come from poor background that had to work their asses off the get into a UC school. If you went to a private University good for you, your choice... unless you werent smart enough to get into the competitive state funded schools.
You're right, life isn't free! Abolish public education--you want it for your kids, you pay for it out of pocket. That way, we can do away with progressive taxation.
Lucky you that you have a job that bears a $750 monthly loan payment; not every UC graduate does. I guess in your world, no UC grad is, say, a teacher or otherwise makes less than 50k. High school education also increases earning power, but that is hardly an argument for making it anything but free to students. Somehow, many people have lost sight of education as a public good from which everyone benefits. For many years, it was California's exemplary education system, including universities that were all but free, that contributed greatly to its success as a state.
Yes, college has something of a sliding scale, but a lot of middle and lower-middle class students get the short end of that stick.
I understand that everything sucks right now and that we will all be served a steaming piece of suck pie. That doesn't mean people shouldn't complain, fight for a smaller serving of suck, try to prevent the suck, or demand the suck be equitably distributed. For instance, maybe it's time that prison guard's unions, or wealthy beneficiaries of Prop 13 eat some suck pie. It's just easier to spot and blame the loudly protesting victims than to notice who's quietly making out like a bandit.
While I certainly empathize with the increasing costs (and necessity) of education, I'm having a hard time restraining the waaahmbulance on this one. California is essentially bankrupt and its not just state-sponsored students that are taking a hit. Government employees have been furloughed for months, and the rest of us are looking at higher taxes and reduced services all around. Not to mention the impact of private sector lay-offs and the housing bubble.
I feel like I'm missing some more nuanced point here - could someone explain why students and faculty are on strike, other than "the economy sucks and its not fair"? There's got to be a better reason than that, right? 'Cause I'm certainly not striking from my (government-associated) job to protest imminent pay cuts and lay-offs.
It has a lot to do with perceived inequities in financial resource allocation by the UC Regents. I don't understand it all myself, and if I did, I'm unsure whether or not I'd agree with the strike. Apparently though, it's more nuanced than "waaah."
You didn't even manage to quote the so-called "mantra" correctly. Way to add nothing but cynicism to a fight that is shared by everyone concerned with the survival of public institutions.
What you do is worse than a waste of time. I pity you.
You pity me? Hon, wait in line.