The Society and Politics Committee
The 2008 election was a great victory for those of us who believe in affordable, equal-opportunity education, rebuilding the middle and working classes and saving our environment. Unfortunately, we are so far behind where we need to be that casting a ballot is incommensurate with the extent of change and reform that needs to happen.
Tuition has increased double-digits in the past 10 years. Neither income nor grant aid has kept up with this increase, and poor and working-class families must devote 44 percent of their income, even after financial aid, to pay for the cost of a public four-year college. In addition, Wisconsin has one of the largest gaps between blacks and whites in retention and recruitment - 21 percent of black young adults are enrolled in college, compared to 44 percent of whites, and 33 percent complete within six years, compared with 60 percent of whites (cited from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education). In a time when state budget cuts are a dire necessity, now is not the time to reduce funding and attention to recruitment and retention of students of color but time to drastically improve it.
In addition, Wisconsin should allow hard-working, integrated but undocumented students who call this state their home to receive the same in-state tuition as their classmates. Not allowing them the same rights as other students who have grown up here will create an unnecessary burden on our Social Security system in the future (as the pool of uneducated jobs with living wages continuously decreases) and also will fail to maximize the economic and social benefits of providing high-achieving students with the opportunity of affordable education.
Take a second and think back to your high-school job - I was a dishwasher - and imagine having to work in that position for the next 10 years because you were priced out of a college education. It is in our common social and economic interest that every qualified student get a chance at a higher education and that we end the racially defined gaps in our public institutions.
This election was most definitively about change, and many would like to point to it as a turning point. I think they may not fully understand the extreme inertia of the status quo that is our public policy. It's easy for politicians to forget things that were said in the heat of the campaign."" However, it is not so easy for those of us with mounting debt, facing an economy with no jobs, an environment in crisis and two wars draining our tax dollars (and future social programs) to forget those promises. This Saturday, hundreds of students and community members will be gathering in Library Mall at noon to march to the Capitol and demand that Wisconsin lawmakers start change now. They will be asking for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, more green jobs, increased recruitment and retention of students of color, lower tuition and increased grant aid.
On the night of Nov. 4, I stood among 600 or so of my fellow students in the Rathskeller and watched Obama give his acceptance speech, and he said, ""I ask you to believe not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours."" And there's no time like today (or Saturday at noon on Library Mall) to capitalize on the new Democratic presidency, Congress and state government and begin holding ""change"" accountable.
Megan Sallomi is the director of the Society and Politics Committee in the Wisconsin Union Directorate. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
