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Contributors
K. Lloyd Billingsley - Contributor
[Courtesty of Pacific Research
Institute]
K. Lloyd
Billingsley is Editorial Director for the Pacific
Research Institute and has been widely published on topics
including on popular culture, defense policy, education reform,
and many other current policy issues. [go to Billingsley index]
 March
Madness
Students' unworthy protests...
[K. Lloyd Billingsley] 3/26/04
On March 15, some 5,000 community college students,
more by some counts, descended on California's capitol, hoisting
signs, denouncing the governor and bellowing that they had been
betrayed. The casual observer might have wondered if this was
a protest against the war in Iraq. Turns out, it was something
else.
Buried deep in news stories about the event came the revelation
that the protest was over a raise in college per-unit fees from
$18 to $26. Even though the students were products of California's
K-12 system, in which about half of the best high-school graduates
need remedial math, they could figure out that the increase amounts
to a paltry $8. That is, about half the price of a CD, a fraction
of the cost of the latest sneakers, and about what one might
spend for lunch in some local eateries.
The organizers sought favorable media coverage
and got it. In their leads, news stories described a "44-percent" increase
in college fees, which sounds much more draconian than eight
dollars. One story did point out that even at $26, the fees are
still the cheapest in the nation. But to hear some of the students,
one would think that the governor had shut down the entire college
system.
To the contrary, California's master plan makes room for every
student who wants to attend college, whether at the University
of California, the Cal State system, or one of the 109 community
colleges. California taxpayers subsidize every full-time community
college student to the tune of $4,500 per student. On top of
that, Cal-Grants, Pell Grants, and other forms of aid are readily
available.
Education is not free, and it is reasonable that students pay
some of the cost. In a state facing huge deficits because of
reckless spending, it is reasonable that those costs may increase.
Instead of complaining over $8, the students would do well to
protest the bureaucratic overhead in the college system, and
more broadly in state government.
An investigation of administrative salaries, for example, could
prove enlightening. Legislators should also look into those matters,
and learn the lesson of march madness.
The $8 protest should topple the stereotype of students as victims,
a legacy of the sixties when the issue was American involvement
in Vietnam. Today's sixties re-enactors march to inherit that
legacy. But the sound and fury of political street theater does
not mean that the marchers occupy the moral high ground, that
the facts are on their side, or that their protest is worthy
of serious attention from legislators.
Instead of allowing themselves to be leveraged, legislators
and the press should extend extra scrutiny to causes that claim
to represent all students and cast them as victims. CRO
copyright
2004 Pacific Research Institute
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