No hikes, no cuts, tax the ones who fucked it up

This year tuition has gone up 14%, half of the proposed 30% increase, which was instated by Gov. Gregoire in an attempt to balance Washington’s mismanaged budget. With this “all-cuts budget,” the Governor is exchanging the education of students who could previously afford tuition for a balanced budget. This exchange is a blow to the diversity of our schools as well as a blow to the future of equality in this country.

Public schools are a democratizing element in higher education. Most students of public colleges and universities are people who cannot afford an Ivy League education. The students who are being balanced out of an education are not the children of business leaders, bankers, or politicians. Saving money by defunding public schools is balancing the budget on the backs of poor and middle income Washington residents, with a disproportionately high effect on students of color and working students.

Public schools provide educational opportunities for those of us who, without public education, would not have the opportunities available to make sure our children live better lives than our parents, and now many of us are watching that opportunity disappear.
A 30% rise in tuition combined with the loss of enormous amounts of State Need Grants and all work-study opportunities will effectively close off the opportunity of a better future for many of the students in Washington State.

Funding cuts also have meant reduction of employment available to faculty and staff, the essential people in putting the education in our Higher Education. The loss of our faculty and staff means a lowering of quality in our educations, which is apparent in increasingly large class sizes and the removal of funding and positions from essential research enters on campus. These issues will only become more apparent if more continues to be taken from schools in the future.

Economic recovery does not occur by destroying funding for education.

However, while the “operating budget,” which pays faculty and staff salaries, is being drastically cut, projects in the “capital budget,” such as the CAB redesign, art installations, Les Purce’s new home, and the new roundabout and sign, are right on track. Capital projects receive funding from our tuition for construction that won’t even be completed by the time many of graduate, and that contribution to our education is insignificant compared to the loss of our faculty and staff. The main contribution of these projects is to add to the property value of the institution, allowing the school to attract a wealthier student body and charge more for tuition in the future with the excuse of fancy new facilities.

I did not agree to sacrifice my education for Les Purce’s new home or a roundabout.

Public education is a leveling force in a country where wealth is becoming increasingly held by fewer people. Making educational opportunities available is a direct solution to raising the standards of living in communities across the country, as well as assuring the financial stability of future generations. Since 2000, 2/3 of the wealth created in the US has gone to the top 1% of the population, while tuition and cost of living have continued to rise and real wages have steadily fallen.

By balancing the budget on the backs of students, teachers, and working people, Gov. Gregoire has attempted to fix her own disastrous fiscal practices by stealing from those whom she believes have the least resources to stop her.

It is not that other solutions to the budget deficit are lacking. The problem for the Governor is that to implement other methods of correcting the deficit would mean going up against the rich people and corporations who spend millions on lobbying and elections and can make or break her future campaigns.

The amount given in corporate tax exemptions every year is double the deficit, an obvious example whose interest those in the Capital are representing. If these exemptions were revoked for one year we could pay off our deficits, twice. Corporations such as Boeing and Microsoft are given millions in tax breaks every year for the unreceived service of creating jobs in Washington. They are even given hundreds of thousands each in tax returns, all while cutting jobs across the state.

Washington State has the most regressive tax system in the United States. Instituting progressively structured income tax to replace the sales tax, which disproportionately taxes middle and lower income people, could easily raise enough to cover our deficit as well. These are not the only solutions which would equitably distribute the burden of the financial problem back onto those who created it and got rich in the process.

On an institutional level, highly paid administrators should receive lower pay and construction projects paid with student fees should be halted before job cuts and tuition hikes are instated. Investments of institutional funds should not be invested in banks that gamble with our money or companies that use sweatshop labor, costing Americans jobs while exploiting workers abroad and driving the prices of goods down into Wal-Mart territory. Cheap sweatshop goods means less pay and job scarcity when we graduate school. Our tuition should not be invested in ways that will directly contribute to the destruction of jobs in which we could use our degrees upon graduation.

But the most viable solution to stop our public schools from being sold off, piece by piece, will not come from the politicians. The best chance we have is from the teachers, workers and students who believe in the public good of public education, and are willing to fight for it.
Across the country students are standing with teachers and workers to say “No!” to the privatization of their school systems and public services. From California to New York City schools have been occupied, sit-ins and teach-ins held, and the call has been put out for a nationwide Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4.

Students will be walking out of classes at Evergreen on Feb. 5 at 11 am to protest budget cuts and tuition hikes. If you are losing financial aid money, work-study positions and hours, taking a furlough or pay-cut, paying 30% more for tuition in the next 2 years, or in being effected by the budget cuts in any way, walk-out and stand together in solidarity. Stand up and come say how the destruction of public education is affecting you. Come work together to stop budget cuts now.

Olympia Coalition for a Fair Budget holds meetings every Wednesday at 4:30 pm in SEMII, A2109 to work for a just ecotnomic response to Washington’s fiscal problems.