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1 comment - Last on 11/30/2009
California Tuition Turmoil
The tuition protests at the 
incense of righteous indignation and idealistic fervor.
Of course, it has been a long time since any student protest could be unironically described in those terms. The
One of the ironies here is that the Board of Regents have no one to blame but themselves for the profound ignorance of economics displayed by the students. A curriculum that doesn’t ensure that students have a basic understanding of public finance, cost structures, and social services leaves students in a sea of incomprehension when it comes to the sorts of financial stringencies the University of California faces. The students who occupied a building at UC Santa Cruz issued a list of 35 demands that reflects their virtuosity at magical thinking and utopian manifesto-writing but shows them ill-equipped to manage their own credit cards, let alone a public university. The demands include:
Repeal the 32-percent fee increase
Keep all resource centers open: engaging education, women's resource center, and all other diversity centers
Keep the campus child-care center open
Making UC Santa Cruz a safe campus for all undocumented (AB540) students and workers
Repeal all furloughs to all campus employees, renege the 15-percent cut in labor time for custodians
Un-arming UC police of all weapons including tasers
An apology from the regents and the state
Creating a free and permanent organizing space on campus for student activists and organizers (first options: Kresge Town Hall)
The protesters added some “long-term” goals, including:
no student fees
abolition of regents' positions
abolition of all student debts
tripling of funds from the state to public universities
Impeach Mark Yudof
cut ties with Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos & Livermore National Labs
Mark Yudof, president of the
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I am in complete agreement with Peter Wood on this story. What these students should realize is that what the government gives it can take away at any time. Perhaps the University of California campuses can throw students a bone of consolation and offer free tuition on its Economics 101 courses.
by Patrick33 Posted on 11/25/2009