Thursday, November 18, 2010

Police Clash with California Students During Tuition Protest

While the state of California is having serious trouble raising money to keep its operations going, students have taken to the streets in San Francisco protesting increasing tuition fees.

AP reports:
Police arrested and pepper-sprayed University of California students during a violent protest Wednesday over a proposed tuition increase that left four officers injured.

Thirteen people, including 10 UC students, were taken into custody during the demonstration at UC San Francisco, where the Board of Regents was meeting, said campus police Chief Pamela Roskowski.

One student was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon after a campus police officer was hit with his own baton, Roskowski said.

The officer was struck in the head after a group of protesters surrounded him in a parking garage and grabbed his baton, she said. The officer drew his gun in self-defense and called for assistance.
It's a bizarre world where a broke government provides education for students, then messes with the tuition rate. AP again:
About 300 students and workers participated in the demonstration ahead of Thursday's expected board vote on an 8 percent tuition hike, which would follow a 32 percent fee increase this year...Under the plan, student fees for California residents would increase by $822 to $11,124. The figure doesn't include individual campus fees or room and board.
The students obviously aren't being taught that government never provides quality services. Here's one of the protesters, an "economics" student:
"We're paying so much more for our fees, but we're getting so much less in return," said Jonathan Ly, 19, a sophomore majoring in political science and economics at UC Merced. "Class sizes are increasing. We're not getting enough classes."


He sounds surprised. The government has so corrupted the education process that most students should really ask if it is a wise decision to attend the school they are attending. Unless you can get into an elite school like Harvard, Yale etc., where the intimidation factor after graduation will have some value, the best choice is probably to find the cheapest place you can, for post-high school education.

These students, rather than protesting about a lower rate for a poor education, should be reading Gary North's America's Lowest Cost Colleges: How to Earn An Accredited College Degree for Pennies on the Dollar.

4 comments:

  1. The best way to protest the rate increase would be to boycott the school for a semester or more if needed. All students should just not show up for the entire semester and pay any fee for that semester.
    This would resolve the rate hike situation pretty fast, since the management does not want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg (the students are paying for them, if they are not there, then the management can be dissolved and has no use at all)

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  2. I attended UCSD from 1984 until 1990. During that entire time (SIX YEARS) student fees barely budged, going from roughly $1350 per year to about $1500. It was a great time to go to a UC or CSU school. Costs were low. Quality was pretty good. Price increases were nominal (but this didn't include books and other expenses). Then the 1991 budget crisis occurred and fees just started exploding. Now, you have fee increases alone that are greater than the annual fees when I was a student. It's about 8x the cost, and the quality has certainly declined. All I can say is "wow."

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  3. One student was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon after a campus police officer was hit with his own baton, Roskowski said.

    So when an officer hits people with his own baton, that's, what, love and affection?

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  4. Thank you anonymous when will the people finally figure out that that is simply all it takes, if we want to send a message to anybody just simply boycott them. They (the ones in charge) are simply leveraging the money anyway we pay $1 they borrow $40 on it. We cut them off and the bills come due right then with penalties, fees, surcharges that the bankers are charging. Wake up America

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