Marching For Educational Opportunities for Low-Income Students

I just returned from a massive rally for education reform at UC Berkeley, my alma mater. Thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community supporters -- including yours truly -- flooded the intersection at Telegraph and Bancroft, the historical site of 1960s free speech gatherings and antiwar protests. Our message this afternoon? To paraphrase the famous words of fictitious Network anchor Howard Beale, "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take this anymore!"

"This," of course, refers to the disastrous policies that have been forced upon public schools across the nation, particularly in California, in response to state and federal budget cuts. As fellow blogger Rachel Mulroy writes, higher education in the Golden State has been "hit hard by a 20 percent cut in state funds resulting in layoffs, class cancellations and a 32 percent increase in student fees." No one was particularly surprised when school administrations decided to throw the burden of the budget cuts on the backs of the most vulnerable -- students and low-paid staff (starting with 38 laid-off custodians). After all, these "new" policies are really just escalated versions of tactics that public school boards have been employing for years.

At the University of California in particular, dramatic fee increases that have the effect of slowly pricing potential students out of higher education have been common practice since the seventies. "In 1975," reports the Daily Californian, "annual student fees for resident undergraduates were $600. Adjusted for inflation, that is only $2,408, slightly more than a third of what [California] resident students currently pay." That article was written last November, just two months before the implementation of a mandatory 15 percent fee increase for all spring students. By this fall, the increase will balloon to 32 percent, or $10,302 for resident students.

From a financial perspective, I still consider that price a relatively good deal for the first-rate education that the UC campuses offer when compared to staggering rates at private Ivy league universities. But the question that students and faculty pose is whether economic concerns should trump the promotion of equal educational opportunities for all young Californians, regardless of income. Public education is tasked with more than making a profit. Fundamentally, its mission is to provide access to a high-quality learning facility for any student who succeeds academically in high school or community college. Dramatic fee increases drag the university further from this crucial goal and impair the future career and earning potential of many qualified young Californians.

The administration isn't even stopping at fee hikes, though. There's been plenty of talk recently about the privatization of the UC system. The concept is simple: if you're a public university that can't depend on a sufficient budget from government sources, become a private university; raise fees for all students, bring in more out-of-state or international students and charge them even more, and solicit funding from endowments and other external sources. Forget mitigating the income gap by providing a low-cost four-year education for students from poor families. Do what you can to stay afloat.

The argument for privatization, albeit disheartening from an anti-poverty perspective, seems to make sense from an economic point of view. That is, until you take a look at the facts.

Bob Samuels, president of the University of California American Federation of Teachers, explains that 2009 was actually a record year of revenue for the UC system, from money brought in from research grants and medical profits to the additional funds received through the federal stimulus package. Why the fee increases and staff layoffs, then? According to Samuels, the answer's obvious: extra revenue "is being funneled into the compensation of the star faculty and the star administrators." Non-tenured faculty and lower-paid staff, however, get the short end of the stick.

The president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations and UC Santa Cruz professor of political and social thought, Bob Meister, sums it up nicely: "The number-one misunderstanding is that the budget crisis is driven by the state financial crisis, when really it is a crisis of priorities."

Lest someone suggest that the UC Regents-approved budget plan is all we have to work with, I'd like to point out that alternative proposals have been offered. As one example, Charles Swartz, professor emeritus in the physics department at UC Berkeley, developed a three-pronged approach that would raise $633 million without raising student fees or compromising the academic integrity and quality of the institution. His suggestions? Take 15 percent of the bonus pay offered to faculty members in the university's Medical Centers, use 15 percent of available discretionary funds and impose a progressive tax on the salaries of all employees making over $80,000 (ranging from zero to 20 percent). That third suggestion alone would provide $500 million -- just six percent of the university's total payroll. Unsurprisingly, his plan was met with little serious consideration.

And so the public education crisis continues.

Photo credit: Charlotte Hill