Love Laugh & Organize

Here is how I spent two hours of my Friday last week:

This all started last week when I and DA went to a legislative conference for an organization that I shall leave nameless. We went to a panel entitled, “IOU (I Owe Univeristy): Higher Education Funding in the current Economic Climate”. This panel was going to discuss the problems with student debt as well as provide solutions to the problem. This panel was specifically targeting a specific ethnic group while at the same time providing information about racial and ethnic backgrounds represented in higher education (but please take that with a grain of salt because they did not disaggregate the data for Asian American-Pacific islander and Latino students). They mentioned California a couple of times. They mentioned current day facts without at all talking about why this is happening or what policies were instituted years ago to make sure that there is an educational gap for low income and students of color. For example, you cannot state that schools with predominantly African American and Latino students in California lack the investment in college attendance because of lack of resources when there have been policies like prop. 13 that have made sure those low income students will never get the same funding and educational resources to continue their education. I was starting to get dis invested from the presentation.

At this point in the session, I figured it was just going to be a presentation on data that people already knew instead of actually hitting on the issues of why these disparities in education have happened and how we can overcome them. Halfway through this panel, I was thinking about how this was probably a waste of time for me to come to…….until HE came up to present.

Up next was this one dude who worked for an organization that does policy research. During his opening speech, he said something that not only made me FURIOUS, but also made me realize why I was so bothered by the panelist. Here is what he said, “I am glad that **** brought us panelist together. Even though we all work for different organizations or government agencies, I am glad to call all these people my friend. Three of the four of us actually used to work for the same company called Salle Mae before moving to where we are now”……..SALLIE MAE!! Yes, that’s right, Sallie Mae. The same private loan lender that is one of the main reason why students are in debt in the first place! Aside from also mentioning facts by previous presenters, he suggested students need to start taking initiative in finding resources to fund their education such as private grants and donors.

The last panelist was supposed to talk about how students can deal with the debt, but 20% of her whole presentation was about student loan debt, and rest of the time was ALL ABOUT HER. She talked about her new book coming out, how she has ran for office, how she has ran campaigns to educate students, how her life was growing up in California, how it was going to Howard University 20 years ago. I hate it when people use a public forum about a serious issue for self promotion. She then talks about the work she did with Sallie Mae. She said that she used to have Sallie Mae programmed in her phone and she would always tell her family members to program Sallie Mae’s phone number into their cell phones because it was “another source of financial aid”. She went to talk about how to deal with student debt and how students have to stop wasting money the moment they get it. She said students need to stop spending money on fancy clothes and cell phones and start thinking about our education and students need to actually make an effort to learn about the money out there. I just do not understand how someone can talk about the problems of student debt in the same presentation where she is asking everyone to program Sallie Mae into their phones. She is perpetuating the problem while at the same time taking away any responsibility from private lenders and putting the blame on students .She ended her speech by saying this, “I am going to leave you with valuable advice that will help you in the future, ’Yesterday is a canceled check, tomorrow is a promissory note, and today is cash, spend wisely’”. What in the world does that supposed to mean?!? If I even wanted her advice, I would have wanted a call to action or at least a website so I can learn more about student debt, but instead she just gave a quote! Currently, there is the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act that will go through the Senate. This is probably one of the biggest legislation that will help students in a very long time. For the panel to not mention this legislation is a missed opportunity. We need to make sure that policies like this one pass so that our education systems steer away from privatization.
Ok, so aside from me being very aggravated, I realized how we need a shift in the way we see policy, especially at conference that are supposed to help students of color and low income students. We need to start focusing on how to keep Universities, school systems, and private lenders accountable to the need of students instead of focusing on legislation that alleviates some of the problems that are created by these institutions. Throughout that whole presentation, not once did they talk about any current or future policies that can help students. Using a space that brings together so many people to just simply address a problem is not the best way to use that time. We should not be dependent on private lenders and private donations to deal with the huge budget cuts our schools are facing and the increasing student fees that are affecting students across the country. We should be focusing on equality and equity of an education. Telling students they are financially irresponsible and lack the resources to go to college is wrong. There are so many social barriers that must be broken in order to make sure that everyone has the same opportunities to go to college.

Students are not to be blamed for the economic downfall of higher education. I am glad that students continue to make their voices heard; whether it was the thousands of UC students who walked out last week, the hundreds of Arizona students who rallied last year or other demonstrations across the country, students are making their voice heard.

Call your representative, write a letter, write an Op-ed, tell your friends, tell your family, do whatever you can to make your voice heard to make sure that students are not used as the scapegoats while the real cause of the problems we are having continue to profit.



Signing my monthly student loan payment check,

-DM