Even public schools are too expensive. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the University of California regents voted yesterday to raise tuition by 32 percent. Meanwhile angry students and protesters pounded drums and blocked exits to the UCLA building where the regents were meeting.
Total, undergraduate tuition will spike from $7,788 to $10,302 next fall, not including living expenses. Students will see a midyear increase of 15 percent starting in January. ”I absolutely had to vote for this,” Assembly Speaker and Regent Karen Bass said after the vote. As an architect of the state’s budget — which has contributed to a UC deficit of more than $800 million over the last two years — “it would have been hypocritical of me not to.”
Outside the meeting, about 2,000 students chanted loudly before the vote and long after the meeting was over. They beat drums and shouted, “No justice! No peace!” and collapsed to the ground to symbolize what they called the death of an affordable UC education. California is going through a massive budget crisis, but is this the way to raise funds? It’s clear that the state needs to get creative, but it’s disheartening that college education is getting even less affordable, especially when students need to prepare themselves for a dismal job market. Suddenly supporters of the legalization of marijuana sound pretty smart — maybe that’s a better way to help California.
Comments
Jackie
November 20th, 2009 - 11:40:30 AM
these Regents are fucking jokes. they don't care about higher education, they're all Republican executives from financial firms and the like -- they've been trying to do away with public goods for quite some time now, and now they have their golden opportunity. as they said themselves, it would have been hypocritical not too. i mean, one of these Regents used to be an executive at Goldman Sachs, and one of the reasons the UC system is now so in debt is because the university decided to invest in the housing market -- like Goldman Sachs -- and then it imploded (like Goldman Sachs), but, of course, the public has come in to save the day, via taxes, and still they fuck us over (like Goldman Sachs) fucking joke.
Kat Ahn
November 20th, 2009 - 11:51:56 AM
My heart goes out to these UC students... they're just trying to better themselves and get educated. This is a huge slap in the face to each of these students! I worked 3 jobs, internships while going to college and even then..it wasn't enough money.
cinc
November 21st, 2009 - 10:43:53 PM
Schwarzenegger at the UCLA-student-strike was smoking cigars on U.S.-Base Baghdad & Tadji. We need to stop the torture-state: "Those were the times we ended Vietnam-war: International War Crimes Tribunal (1st: 1967: Stockholm, Sweden and Roskilde, Denmark) Against the crime of silence; proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal, Stockholm, Copenhagen. Edited by John Duffett. Introd. by Bertrand Russell. Foreword by Ralph Schoenman. [1st ed.]. New York, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1968 ; International War Crimes Tribunal (1st: 1967: Stockholm, Sweden and Roskilde, Denmark) We accuse! a report of the Copenhagen session of the War Crimes Tribunal; edited by John Duffett. London, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1968. International War Crimes Tribunal (1967: Stockholm, Sweden and Roskilde, Denmark) Tribunal [reports]. Kobenhavn [1968]". We need a protest movement and not only a struggle about tuition fees.
libhomo
November 22nd, 2009 - 1:14:32 AM
Making the rich pay closer to their fair share in taxes would solve the budget problems in every state.