Barricaded Protesters @ Berkeley!

[3113]

UC Berkeley students took over a campus building in protest this morning, a day after the University of California regents voted to raise tuition by 32 percent.

An undetermined number of protesters barricaded themselves at about 6 a.m. inside Wheeler Hall, which houses the English department. Several demonstrators wearing bandannas opened a window, displayed a sign reading "32% Hike, 900 layoffs" with the word "Class" crossed out in red. They used a bullhorn to denounce the regents' decision and to rally support from a group of students chanting outside.

University and Berkeley police cordoned off the building, located just north of Sather Gate, with yellow police tape.

At the UC regents' meeting Thursday in Los Angeles, the board voted 20-1 to raise undergraduate tuition from $7,788 to $10,302 next fall. Students will see a midyear increase of 15 percent starting in January.

Wise decision to go for the English building. Plenty to read there behind the barricades.

Back at the Barricades

 

[rgraham666]

Plus ca change…

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Plus ca change…

Anyone remember the rest of this Berkeley free-speech carol...?

"God rest ye, free speech movement-niks, you must remember when
Good Mario, our Savio, did speak to speak again..."

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Sigh! "But I qualified for Berkeley. That means I'm special so you can't make me do anything I don't want to do! You owe it to me!"

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Wise decision to go for the English building. Plenty to read there behind the barricades.

Back at the Barricades

Of course, there isn't a lot to eat. Were they expecting Mommy to send a caterer?

 

[Epmd607]

Over 20% increase in tuition from one year to the next? That's something to protest over, especially since the state's responsible for the school and the state made some serious errors in judgment in terms of spending. Now the kids have to pay along with their parents, actually the parents will have to pay both ways, tuition and higher taxes. Just shows how the business run government special interest bureaucracy kills the middle class.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Or how the university commits suicide by over-expansion. The higher education industry has been selling itself as the ticket to the good life so hard that the middle class believes that anything but a blue-ribbon university degree is failure. This is economic nonsense. It is also unjust as they have forced the elementary and high school system to run programs that are aimed solely at the university. Such policies effectively write off three-quarters of the population as unworthy of educating. Is that the program we as a society should favor?

I loved being in the university but I'm one of those odd people, a born academic. Too many kids are in the university who really don't belong there, a fact that is slowly dawning even on the university.

 

[3113]

Sigh! "But I qualified for Berkeley. That means I'm special so you can't make me do anything I don't want to do! You owe it to me!"

Of course, there isn't a lot to eat. Were they expecting Mommy to send a caterer?

I'll pass on your comments to the Berkeley folk I know who spent time with their homeless parents living on the streets, and/or were shuffled through foster homes, and/or avoided both drugs and gangs in their dirt poor neighborhoods and worked their asses off in high school in order to qualify to go to that school. Also one-or-two who came home from being in the army and went there on the government's dime. I'm sure they'll appreciate such stereotyping.

And would you really not protest paying an extra $3,000 dollars a year if you were barely managing to pay that $7,700 a year using what your parents put away for you combined with what you were earning at a part-time job? Nothing is owed anyone, but if they earn their way in, and worked out payment for those four years very carefully on what they expected to pay, then you can hardly blame them for being upset when the cost shoots up that much without warning.

I don't say that this is the way to change anyone's minds about it, but there you go.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Or how the university commits suicide by over-expansion. The higher education industry has been selling itself as the ticket to the good life so hard that the middle class believes that anything but a blue-ribbon university degree is failure. This is economic nonsense. It is also unjust as they have forced the elementary and high school system to run programs that are aimed solely at the university. Such policies effectively write off three-quarters of the population as unworthy of educating. Is that the program we as a society should favor?

I loved being in the university but I'm one of those odd people, a born academic. Too many kids are in the university who really don't belong there, a fact that is slowly dawning even on the university.

When I was going to high school they were cutting back on the shop programs to focus more on college and university prep courses, as if that was the only type of student that attended our school system (quite the opposite, most students in my school system were working-man types).

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Colleges are now the Special Olympics of education. Everyone qualifies to play and everyone gets a nice plastic BEEN THERE-DONE THAT trophy at the end of the game.

I agree that three-quarters of the bodies in college should be elsewhere doing something useful like keeping house and raising their children. Mister Rose was right when he told Homer, NIGGERS DONT NEED TO KNOW THAT! People would be a lot happier and useful if they picked apples and left the thinking up to people like me. YOU DO THE HEAVY LIFTING AND I DO THE HEAVY THINKING.

 

[JamesSD]

You know, on the one hand, I'm sympathetic to their unhappiness with the fee hikes.

On the other hand, I'm not sure what they're hoping for. The state doesn't have the money to pay for it. Generally speaking cutting support staff jobs and benefits isn't popular with students either. Cutting administrator salaries is popular, but would really only be a drop in the bucket.

Borrowing against tomorrow is dangerous too.

 

[trysail]

...The state doesn't have the money to pay for it...
...Borrowing against tomorrow is dangerous too...

These are abstract concepts that are not understood by the innumerati.

Doncha know: money grows on trees and there is a limitless supply?

 

[Xelebes]

32%? Psh, that's nothing. The University of Alberta is cranking up their tuition rates by 63%.

 

[Epmd607]

Yeah, anyone can get into college, but a significant percent of kids who enter college as freshman don't come out with four year degrees, I think the drop out rate is even higher in community colleges. It's hard to get into college in England but it might actually be easier to get your degree once you've been admitted.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Yeah, anyone can get into college, but a significant percent of kids who enter college as freshman don't come out with four year degrees, I think the drop out rate is even higher in community colleges. It's hard to get into college in England but it might actually be easier to get your degree once you've been admitted.

This despite the emphasis that lower education puts on college preparatory education to the detriment of everything else. We need more shops and fewer standardized tests. Some courses on starting and running small businesses would be good, too.

 

[JackLuis]

I read with wry amusement the news of Bezerkly protests as the U shows their support for the lifestyle of the tenured.

is it possible that it is 1968 all over again and that next summer will be the psychic return of "The Summer of Love?"

Oh be still my beating heart!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I'm not sure I want to imagine a pasture full of people as old as me dancing naked and covered with mud.

 

[Xelebes]

I'm not sure I want to imagine a pasture full of people as old as me dancing naked and covered with mud.

Too bad I can't just imagine instead of remembering.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Too bad I can't just imagine instead of remembering.

You remember? Are you sure you were there?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Yeah, anyone can get into college, but a significant percent of kids who enter college as freshman don't come out with four year degrees, I think the drop out rate is even higher in community colleges. It's hard to get into college in England but it might actually be easier to get your degree once you've been admitted.

I hope you know that community colleges don't give out four year degrees.

Having said that, it depends on what you mean by "drop out" of a community college. Some people enter them to take specific courses, either out of personal curiosity or to help them on their jobs, and have no thought of ever earning a degree. Some local colleges in the SF Bay Area might classify me as a dropout because I attended them but did not graduate. What I did, and what I believe millions of people do, is earn some credits in electives or even required classes, transfer them to a four year college, and get a degree from the U. It's cheaper, easier and more convenient.

 

[driphoney]

I hope you know that community colleges don't give out four year degrees.

Having said that, it depends on what you mean by "drop out" of a community college. Some people enter them to take specific courses, either out of personal curiosity or to help them on their jobs, and have no thought of ever earning a degree. Some local colleges in the SF Bay Area might classify me as a dropout because I attended them but did not graduate. What I did, and what I believe millions of people do, is earn some credits in electives or even required classes, transfer them to a four year college, and get a degree from the U. It's cheaper, easier and more convenient.

They tend to track that if they can. It's common here. The universities themselves keep those transfer stats, maybe even the state ed board.

But you're right. The nature of community college lends itself to many needs including just taking a few classes here and there.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

They tend to track that if they can. It's common here. The universities themselves keep those transfer stats, maybe even the state ed board.

But you're right. The nature of committee college lends itself to many needs including just taking a few classes here and there.

Again there is this disconnect between the Official Line and the needs of the person. Universities place great emphasis on attaining a degree or series of degrees. Piling up letters after your name is great fun for some, this bear included. However, it has little or no bearing on the reality of the workplace. Slowly we are beginning to understand just what 'life-long learning' really entails. Do you actually have some need for that string of letters or would you be just as well off with a flexible set of skills? How many serious academics with great international reputations can't do minor repairs on their own plumbing? Or fix a spare tire? One shudders to think that a first rate mind has been so channeled in one direction as to make it helpless in the face of minor technological setbacks but that is what has happened.

 

[Xelebes]

You remember? Are you sure you were there?

When I was a wee lad, I had the benefits of going to nudist camps. So yes, I have had more than my fair share thank you very much.

 

[Xelebes]

Again there is this disconnect between the Official Line and the needs of the person. Universities place great emphasis on attaining a degree or series of degrees. Piling up letters after your name is great fun for some, this bear included. However, it has little or no bearing on the reality of the workplace. Slowly we are beginning to understand just what 'life-long learning' really entails. Do you actually have some need for that string of letters or would you be just as well off with a flexible set of skills? How many serious academics with great international reputations can't do minor repairs on their own plumbing? Or fix a spare tire? One shudders to think that a first rate mind has been so channeled in one direction as to make it helpless in the face of minor technological setbacks but that is what has happened.

What it does is ensure that those who CAN fix the plumbing and the sort can earn a decent living instead of making them scrape by.

 

[Epmd607]

I hope you know that community colleges don't give out four year degrees.

Having said that, it depends on what you mean by "drop out" of a community college. Some people enter them to take specific courses, either out of personal curiosity or to help them on their jobs, and have no thought of ever earning a degree. Some local colleges in the SF Bay Area might classify me as a dropout because I attended them but did not graduate. What I did, and what I believe millions of people do, is earn some credits in electives or even required classes, transfer them to a four year college, and get a degree from the U. It's cheaper, easier and more convenient.

That's why I said drop out rate at four year colleges as opposed to drop out rates at community colleges. Kids enter degree programs at community colleges, take a full semester, same as university. Most of my friends spent at least three years in community college before they spent another three at university. Once you have your Associates you can pretty much get into a good state school. Getting into college is easy, finishing a degree program in America really isn't. I took anthropology and philosophy, so college was easy.

BERKELEY – A new report by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) finds that six in 10 students who enter the California community college system as freshmen with high school diplomas and aspirations to transfer to four-year institutions drop out or lower their academic sights after just one semester. The report recommends increasing support for these students.