College Tuition Hike Protest
Photo Credit: Wayne Tilcock, The Davis Enterprise
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Ira Chua
December 12, 2011
Filed under World
Over the last year, many colleges and universities have risen their tuition fees. When universities raise up tuition fees, students tend to be very unhappy, and sometimes they even protest. This is exactly what happened at the UC Davis. As a result, two of the campus police pepper sprayed seated protesters on November 18 and videos of the protest have since gone viral. Chancellor Linda P.B Katehi apologized about the pepper spraying incident and put the two officers on administrative leave in an attempt to regain trust of the student population on campus. The students at the UC campuses of Los Angeles, Berkeley, Riverside and Davis said that they intended to restart their encampments, to test if they will be arrested again after the pepper-spraying incident.
The administrators are tying to find a way to lower the tuition fee because it is seemingly forcing the middle class out of classrooms. The price is becoming too much and they just can’t afford it. ”What keeps happening is that we are turning the university into a place where really only the wealthy can go,” Lillian Taiz, the president of the California Faculty Association, said. “The students are watching their parents fall out of the middle class and watching their own ability to move into it be sabotaged.” Tuition at the University of California has almost doubled over the past several years.
Hopefully, the tuition doesn’t go much higher so that everyone can still afford it. “Education is the key to success.” If you don’t finish college, it is nearly impossible to land a stable job in the market nowadays. As the prices go up, attendance goes down, and so does California student’s chance of finding a secure job in the future.