Last week while taking advantage of the warm weather, I donned the running shoes, not expecting more than a nice run around the lake. On my way back, I was literally chased down for two blocks by a red-faced kid shouting my name until he caught up.
It turns out he was my old friend Danny from back home visiting Madison for spring break. Danny is one of those genuine, sweet, gentlemanly types that is a gosh darn good kid through and through. I asked him how he liked Madtown and he excitedly rattled on about how he absolutely loved the atmosphere and how people here get things done. People are going somewhere. This is where stuff happens. He said this was the reputation for UW-Madison, but nobody could have described this state school without actually being here. For the rest of my run, I couldn't help but smile. Danny was right, I am truly lucky to be a student at Madison where there's a reputation of greatness and I'm surrounded by other gosh darn good kids.
But as the feel-good endorphins from the run wore off and I learned of the nationwide education revolts, in which Madison took no part, my faith in the good kids of UW eroded as well. Schools around the country held protests, rallies, walk-outs, picket-lines, teach-ins and even a mock burial of public education at William Paterson University in New Jersey to demonstrate students' disgust with rising tuition and budget cuts, while encouraging more federal involvement in public education through the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Schools currently rely mostly on state funding and tuition to finance core programs while the federal government's main role is to grant research and provide student aid. According to ""The Chronicle of Higher Education,"" Congress distributes a whopping $100 billion in student loans through private lenders. SAFRA would eliminate those lenders so the Education Department would give money directly to students, saving Congress $87 billion over 10 years. The money saved would then be spent on benefits for colleges and students.
Being a proud Badger, I hate to admit any jealousy to other schools, but damn. Instead of Madison making revolutionary marks, other schools like Syracuse, Washington and California are creatively, and in the case of other Wisconsinites at Milwaukee, radically standing up to education policies and advocating SAFRA in an attention-grabbing way. Like my friend Danny pointed out, we have a reputation at Madison for being active and cutting-edge while representing the rest of our state. We have a responsibility not only to ourselves, but also to the rest of the state and nation to advocate necessary change.
This change is one I know we all care about. I don't need to remind students of the rising price in tuition and how it individually affects students' abilities to get to college, pay for it and receive the education they are promised while budget cuts deny funding to keep UW competitive. We feel the strain of high costs and resort to typical college kid penny-pinching techniques like relying on Febreeze to delay washing clothes, keeping apartments so cold that not even Badger Snuggies keep us warm or opting for cheap, pre-packaged ""food.""
I thought pathetic money-saving tricks like these were a thread of solidarity for all college kids, along with the constant complaint of how the system is screwing us over. Money. We don't have it, but we want it. Now we get a chance to join in a national movement to protest the fact that we aren't getting it. We could make a change that would give us what we want, yet we do nothing. Perhaps Madison's penny-pinching ways stem from pure laziness rather than the strain of education costs.
When specific student organizations like Madison's International Socialist Organization were asked why they are not participating in the education revolt, the responses demonstrated passivity and complacency. Since when does Madison, the same Madison that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Danny depicted, let other people beat them at their own game?
Instead of silently being jealous of other schools for finding their solidarity in the education movement while we apparently find it in our laziness, we need to be inspired by others' work and empower ourselves. Prof. Jeremi Suri's teach-in recollecting UW's activist heydays of the 60s this past weekend should serve as another inspiration. But we should not just reminisce about UW's protest glory days, we should emulate them.
Deep down, we know we're better than this. Badgers have what it takes to stand out above the rest while not letting opportunities pass by. Select ASM representatives have traveled to D.C. to lobby lawmakers in favor of SAFRA, but more collective action on campus is necessary. With Bucky on board, UW's reputable creativity and influence could make the education movement even stronger and draw more needed attention to SAFRA.
Melissa Grau is a freshman intending to major in secondary education and communication arts. Please send all responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
