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| Angry students protest tuition hikes |
| 2010-03-07 |
| Ay-Pee . . . . BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Anger over increasing tuition and school budget cuts boiled over as students across the country staged rowdy demonstrations that led to clashes with police and the rush-hour shutdown of a major freeway in California. Students, teachers, parents and school employees rallied and marched Thursday at college campuses, public parks and government buildings in many U.S. cities in what was called the March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education. One of these days, people in CA will figure out that money does not fall into state coffers like manna from heaven. People will have to make sure they are careful with everyone else's money, and everyone else will have to be careful with your money. And paying bribes for the hispanic vote doesn't pay. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #2 When the wintry winds starts blowing And the snow is starting in the fall Then my eyes went southward knowing That's the place that I love best of all Argentina I've been blue Since I've been away from you I can't wait 'till I get blowing Even now I'm starting in a call Argentina, here we come, worse than where we started from we’re students at Berkeley, tuition’s cheap, a living is owed us the whole world revolves around us Our suntanned profs say “we want more” That is what inflation’s for Open up your rusted gate, Argentina, Here we come. Argentina, here we come, right back where we started from our parents in houses equity free, our unions have pensions we know they will never see A lying pol say spend it all Bankers say let’s just inflate Open up your rusted gate Argentina, Here we come. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-03-07 10:30 |
| #1 This is really an "The Emperor has no clothes" moment for higher education, that is long overdue. It began in earnest with rotten federal court decisions that hiring policies could not be based solely on test results given by employers, as these were, or could at least easily be, "racist". Instead, hiring policies could only be based on whether new hires had a college degree or not. Since colleges could *never* be racist, I guess. This meant not only that colleges would have enormous expansion, yet provide minimum education in a paper chase for a diploma. Cranking out huge numbers of graduates who had to be retrained by employers. Paid for with higher and higher tuition rates and much larger government subsidies. And this meant students would graduate deeply in debt, forcing them to hold off on marriage, children, home ownership, etc., until they had paid off their loans. However, with tuition now skyrocketing all over the country because of cutbacks in government subsidies, and schools unwilling to delete grotesque amounts of fat or spending, the situation is being forced to a head. And never one to not reinforce defeat, now Obama is nationalizing student loans, figuring that students will be beholden to the government for the rest of their lives. However, the truth of the matter is that a heck of a lot of individuals are going to give up trying for a college degree. So what happens from there? Either the federal courts relent, and allow them to hire high school graduates based on test results, or they have to contract with educational corporations to train and evaluate all prospective hires before they will even be considered for hiring. In either case, the days of Enormous State University are rapidly drawing to a close. They will have to slash their spending and eliminate utterly useless degrees, and they are not going to like it one bit. But with losing half or more of their students, they will have no choice. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-03-07 10:25 |