The ongoing
capitalist financial crisis has led to almost universal cutbacks in
social spending in every state in the country. Everything that
benefits the working class is under attack from union rights, to
immigrant rights, to social safety nets, even to publicly-funded
medical assistance programs for the needy and disabled.
Higher
education has not been spared from the chopping block, and in fact,
it is almost always the first to be targeted in any round of cuts.
While the general cost of living has been on the rise for the past
few decades, the cost of education has also increased. However, once
the collapse of the financial markets happened, state governments
began to run short on money and in turn cut spending in services.
In California, while prison spending has
been on the rise, students have been forced to pay more and more
every semester. This is especially problematic for working class and
undocumented students. Working students are being attacked on two
fronts. While students may be working anywhere from one to three jobs
and at the same time taking a full load of classes, their hours and
wages are being cut on top of having to endure back to back tuition
and fee hikes.
July 2011 saw a new budget signed into
law by Governor Jerry Brown. In that budget, $750,000,000 was cut
from both the California State University and University of
California budgets. This has prompted both systems to raise tuition.
The CSU’s Board of Trustees just agreed to another 12 percent hike in
tuition translating into $294 more per semester for students. This is
in addition to a 10 percent or $222 increase last November.
The combined hikes amount to a total of
22 percent or a little over $500 bringing the grand total for
registration to $5,472 per semester not including additional fees,
credential programs, or graduate student fees. At the same time, the
CSU Board of Trustees agreed to raise the CSUSD President Elliot
Hirshman’s salary by $100,000 more than his predecessor bringing his
salary to $400,000 annually. This makes Hirshman’s salary roughly
four times that of the average professor at CSUSD.
In the UC system, the Board of Trustees
passed a 9.6 percent tuition hike on top of the 8 percent hike
approved last November. The fall semester will now cost $13,218 just
to attend a so-called public institution. Between Spring 2010 and
Fall 2011 semesters, tuition has almost doubled from $8,373 to
$13,218. There is also another 5.6 percent hike on the table if the
projections of the state budget fall short this November.
All of these hikes are occurring under a
State Assembly and Senate with a Democratic majority and under the
leadership of a supposed “friend of students” Democrat
Governor Jerry Brown. They cry “pragmatism!” and defend
their cuts to social spending and education. Meanwhile, the prison
system is not adversely affected by the crisis nor are taxes raised
on the wealthy from CSU presidents to oil companies drilling in Los
Angeles.
Since the ’60s, prison spending has
tripled as has the prison population. It was then that funding for
education at all levels began its steady, and increasingly steep,
rise in cost. By 2009 prison spending topped every other item on the
State’s budget excluding Medicaid, which is when the current round of
massive tuition increases began.
When the massive hikes began, students
went to the streets and took direct action against these cuts. April
13 saw administration building occupations at 13 CSU campuses.
Throughout 2010, there were many large UC protests and
occupations including highway closures. Only direct action in the
streets will force real change; lobbying politicians will get the
movement nowhere. Without unified action in the streets, the
Democrats, or any other capitalist party for that matter, will not
change the priorities of the system when it comes to addressing the
needs of students, workers, and oppressed people.
The “Master Plan” for tuition-free
public education will never be realized so long as capitalism reigns
in California and the rest of the United States. To the wealthy,
incarceration and war profiteering are preferred over social spending
and peace. They cannot be convinced otherwise because the only thing
that motivates their actions is profit. The government prioritizes
prisons over education because prisons are more profitable while
serving to diffuse the potential of the most oppressed elements of
society from rising up against the system to demand their rights.
The Democrat and Republican politicians
agree on this issue. They may dispute the finer points of budgets and
war policy but the Democrats say they are the friends of the workers,
students, and oppressed while holding a knife behind their back,
ready to cut first from the programs that benefit the working class
and most vulnerable in society.
The only way for the anti-cuts movement
to be successful is for it to ally with other struggles and take part
in them as well. For success, solidarity between students and
teachers is a necessity. Furthermore, solidarity and mutual action
between students, teachers and working and oppressed peoples that are
not tied to the education system must also be fought for.
Only with a
broad movement connecting all struggles of the working class can real
and lasting change be achieved. This coming school year and beyond,
the Party for Socialism and Liberation will continue fighting to
build that movement: a movement that will make education a right for
all students and put an end to the economic system that prioritizes
incarceration over education.
