Watching this with interest...

UC Berkeley students took over a campus building in protest this morning, a day after the University of California regents voted to raise tuition by 32 percent..

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/BA611ANSAB.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0XPw4MTUW' 

Awesome!

Yeah, but alicia, if you think others should pay for their school, it's going to cost you more of your tax refund you just said that you are trying to save for you wedding. So which is it? Is the money you earn yours... or theirs?

Ha! That's a bitch.

We're pretty screwed either way you look at it I guess, we pay, they pay or they don't pay and stay stuck in the same old rut. It's a sad cycle.

I was just re-thinking this...and you know, I never think that anyone owes me a damn dime and I have to work for everything I want, but hell if I'm going to leave my fellow neighbor in the dirt.

That's my problem there. :)

Well I just wish people would quit voting for others to pay for things they'd not pay for themselves.

"I want this and I want that other guy over there to pay for it, don't want it to cost me a dime..."

 Nice.  I am sure the other guy isn't getting pissed or anything.

i can understand the outcry at such a steep hike...

but i live in pa where state tuition is the most expensive.  i'd love to pay 10 grand for school..... something needs to be done across the board.

Well I just want to know who wants to subsidize their education and it that is YOU, then why not send of them your money? 

When I want to give something to someone, I give it, I don't tell the other person to give it.

And if you want to pay into a pool that helps people (ala taxes) is it reasonable to ask the collective money not be squandered?  How come the professors don't take a salary cut, hmm? They care about education, right?

Or maybe you just want my husband to spend another day out on the road to pay for those kids... well guess what? I don't!

Get a job, take out bigger loan, quit school, do what you have to do but deal with reality because the fact is you are not entitled to a college education and as we as a country get poorer and poorer fewer are going to have one so maybe prosperity wasn't so bad or evil after all, ya think?

So says the old person. ;)

"you are not entitled to a college education"

This is exactly the opposite of what my generation was taught, regardless of how poor my family was growing up, I felt entitled, but I was also taught that I needed to work my ass off for that entitlement. I feel entitled to own a home with a picket fence, have two kids and a dog and have an amazing career, but that's what we were taught and now the wool is being ripped off our eyes. Some people don't appreciate it, but it is fine with me, because I learned to bust my ass if I want any of those things.

I suppose my original awesome comment can now be deleted. Ha.

Elsa, I strongly support the students. When I went to college, government grants and loans were readily availabe to children of the middle class. In the past thirty years, things have changed radically. Student loans were privatized so banks could charge obscene interest rates and other fees. Students have to include their parents' income on their financial forms even though the parents have no legal obligation to contribute to the support of an adult child. In addition, public colleges which are tax supported tried to follow a private school profit model. They took foreign and out of state students so they could get higher tuition. They paid obscene fees to football and basketball coaches. The highest paid state employee in Idaho is the Boise State University football coach, who receives a seven figure salary each year.

They started to churn freshmen. They admitted students as freshmen, would have an insufficient number of freshmen and lower level classes; They would therefore place freshman students into higher level classes which were inappropriate. Naturally these students would have a hard time. Many colleges have a 30% flunk out rate for freshmen. 

Yes, our taxes pay for schools and education.  However, I believe that one of the primary functions of government is education. If we want to compete in an international market, we need more engineers, more scientists, and computer science students. I rather see my tax dollars go to students and colleges than banks and insurance companies. 

Well, they took over my building yesterday :P

I gather the complaint is that they didn't have much in the way of warning or time to get ahold of that much more money for next quarter/semester, and then they have to double that yet again come the fall. And as we all know in CA, the prices will never go down. It's pretty freaking drastic and will get rid of a bunch of students. But I think at this point getting rid of students is the GOAL now. Cheaper, dontcha know, to admit less freshmen or *cough* weed them out for lack of money, and encourage more transfers (which are a much smaller fraction of the pie) and throw the cost onto the community colleges. 

We're used to paying here for the most part. Though someone told me a story yesterday about how some little European country was throwing shit fits in 2004 for having to pay something like $100 to attend college. Oh, you poor babies. 

Also, student loans are one of the only things you can't get rid of via bankruptcy, which makes it a very lucrative market.

I dislike bankruptcy, not promoting it, and I'm fine with there being lucrative markets. BUT, there needs to be a balance, and right now I think the financial sector has been given a safe, no-risk way to get interest from people, so they're jacking up the price of schools well beyond what is reasonable.

There isn't much benefit to us as a society if young people need to be deeply in debt to get a bachelor's degree. It's just siphoning money upwards to the few, AGAIN.

I think some forms of education are good investments for our country (via taxes). If we can pay for a gigantic defense budget, we can pay for this.

I WOULD, however, like to see limits on what someone can major in and still get a grant. It should be slanted towards the things we need in this country. And I think there could be some strings attached, such as the person needs to do some public service of some sort either during school or after graduating.

Elsa, I sympathize with the students. 

1.  Get a job

Many of these students work two to three jobs already to pay for tuition.

2.  quit school

One nice side effect of quitting school is that you get bumped off your parents' insurance. To qualify for jobs that offer health insurance and a living wage, many employers require a college degree for jobs you only need a high school degree to actually do.  And student loan debt cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. 

3.  How come the professors don't take a salary cut, hmm? They care about education, right?

 Professors have already had their salaries cut.  Administrators, not so much.

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/fears-for-the-future-of-the-university-of-california/

Ask yourself how many people are in a position to deal with a 30% hike in one of their major expenses, like rent or tuition.

interesting free market perspective

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DteBlI2eihA

"Ask yourself how many people are in a position to deal with a 30% hike in one of their major expenses, like rent or tuition."

The thing is this is happening to them now and will happen to you tomorrow and me the next day.  ALL of us going to have less and have to do more with it. 

Do I feel sorry for these young able bodied students or the disabled veteran being evicted because he can't pay the rent? Hmm.What about the mother with 3 kids who has worked diligently all her life and has just been laid off?

It's very simple. There is not enough to go around.  You cannot rely on others to foot your bill REGARDLESS of what you've been told or how long you have been told it.

I mean, call me a bitch but CA doesn't have any money and either does the United States.  How people came to think money is free is beyond me.  Someone has to pay for the free money and this is hard to do when they are unemployed. Fact.

I don't see this as free money, I see it as the public making an investment now, to be repaid by taxes paid by the person who is earning higher wages as a result of said education. Higher than poverty level, and paying no taxes.

Avoiding poverty level from the beginning, even if we have to pay some money for education, pays huge dividends in the long run, because it's hard to work your way out of poverty, and expensive, tax-wise.

I hear you, I don't like irresponsible people. I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The thing is there is no money. We are overspent and consequences will be far reaching and widespread. Personally, I hope it affects many people horribly and fast so we can wake the fuck up and turn this around while there is still (may be) a glimmer of hope.

It's not that simple Elsa. Education is a public good, well worth defending. Many of the money is spent wrongly, not on professors or education (but on management for example). That's what needs addressing.

On your general argument: What happens if noone wants to pay for anyone else? The disadvantaged lose BiG time.

But then I prefer a higher tax rate and better public amenities anyway. I am an 'old' European. Outdated I know, but I prefer solidarity and keep the libraries open and the university accessible to everyone who has the ability.

I don't personally think there is any way to turn it around. I think we are going to have to break through that wall and do whatever it is we're going to do on the other side of it. Ecological changes included.

I worked and went to school and graduated without owing any money. If I can do it, why is it impossible for others?

It is that simple, Ambidee. No money is on money.

Should we pay for these college students or pay to keep the libraries open so kids in dire straights (like I was) can educate themselves?

Doesn't matter how you answer that because we can't do either. 

If you want there to be money, and opportunity for these kids when they graduate, then vote to be prosperous and realize that it is your job to carry your own ass.  Your ass is just not that special, truth be told. Especially when it believes it should be subsidized.

You can't impeach me. I came from abject poverty, starving, eating fucking newspaper to fill my stomach for Godsakes. I was talking to my sister yesterday, reminded her of the time she had nothing but a bedsheet to wear. We still didn't whine, people. It is not at all becoming.

I will be more than happy to carry my own ass, but you better believe I am looking HARD at Halliburton, Congress, all of the companies that Congress is involved with, the financial behemoths, billionaires whose great-great-grandchildren never have to work, and expecting them to do the same. Our economic system, our laws, are all designed to the greatest extent possible to funnel money to them, and keep it there.

We would be in a better position now if these elite "masters of the universe," these self-styled 20% who say they're carrying the rest of us, had not siphoned our collective wealth offshore.

i have to agree with you here:

"Personally, I hope it affects many people horribly and fast so we can
wake the fuck up and turn this around while there is still (may be) a
glimmer of hope."

people don't change their behavior en masse unless they feel threatened.

so, i guess, better into the fire than the slow boil.  at least in one case we'll be notice the heat fast enough to jump.

our university faculty and grad student alliance have repeatedly voted no confidence in our president for various ridiculous mismanagements, but the board of regents is appointed by the governor and not really accontable to anyone.  it's frustrating.  and, yes, education is essential.  out of all the things to cut, it should be near the bottom of the list.  but the people making the rules can afford to pay for all the education they need without even thinking about it.  so... they don't.

we need more politician accountabilty.

as always.

This is like the Tower card in the Tarot, right?  Pandemonium, the tower's falling, no one knows what to do, there is anger and fear and resistance to change.

The foundation's been cracked for a long time.  Folks here who were/are students know this - they've commented on the wasteful spending on perpetrating traditions, like sports teams and a huge cadre of coaches, assistant coaches, etc.  Administration is top heavy, some professors too, are expensive to keep on faculty, especially if they are there because they have made a name for themselves and their principle purpose is to attract students.  I've never been a college student, but I've lived in four major college towns/cities, known lots of academics from many faculties.

Something good (education) has been undermined by that which has cracked the foundation (excess, waste, lack of prudence) and now the tower's shaking because Pluto is clearing away that which is not appropriate.

From another thread:  cut your losses, universities, support learning more and sports (and other) traditions less.

From another thread:  you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

Don't want to take sides in this one - just trying to read the signs.

And here is a proposed TAX on tuition..

The students are to pay the pensions of city employees..?