The tens of thousands of working– class students who attend college at one of the 10 University of California campuses can expect a 30 percent increase in tuition next year, in what UC officials are calling an attempt to “close a budget shortfall of $753 million for this year and next.”
 A woman is arrested at UCSF for protesting tuition hikes, San Francisco, Calif., Sept. 16. |
The hikes come after UC workers were forced in July to accept 11 to 26 unpaid furlough days for the school year.
UC President Mark Yudof proposed the tuition hike to the Board of Regents in early September. This has sparked student support of a system-wide walkout on Sept. 24 called by UC workers, and has increased militancy and solidarity among students, staff and faculty. Teach-ins, demonstrations and picket lines are planned at every UC campus for the day of the walkout.
During the current economic crisis, workers have been faced with drastic and disastrous cuts in every sector. From housing to public health programs, workers have been forced to shoulder the burden of the capitalist economic crisis. The tuition hikes are part of this attempt to balance the budget on the backs of the workers and students.
The UC and the California State University, the two public higher education systems in California, have both applied draconian measures in response to the budget shortfalls. This year, for the first time in its history, CSU San José turned down qualified students for its incoming freshmen class—4,400 of them altogether.
Even at current tuition prices, many working-class students must work full time while attending university. They can anticipate graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt from student loans. The UC tuition increase, in a very real sense, means thousands more youth in California will be denied a college education.
The capitalists and their propagandists in the mainstream media frame the debate on cutbacks to education and other social services as a matter of necessity. “The money simply does not exist,” they tell us, and workers just have to accept cutbacks and higher fees.
But we know better. There is no shortage of money to fully fund all of the social programs workers depend on and much more. But under the current system, it is used instead to further enrich the capitalist class and finance imperialist wars. For them, education is just another commodity to be bought and sold. Free, quality education should be a right.
The walkout and protests planned for Sept. 24 can have far-reaching consequences for workers and students. The task faced by those involved in the struggle is how to win the immediate demands, and turn the movement into one that is capable of securing the right to an education for every young person in this country. This militant struggle should serve as an example for every student and worker now under attack.
We can fight back, and we can win.
