When you speak with the baby boomers, they often get teary eyed talking about massive protests against the Vietnam war. Perhaps it’s just some weird autonomic reaction as they recall the tear gas grenades. Maybe it’s because they miss the idealism of their youth. But it all comes back to them as they try to stifle their instinct to begin a sentence, “Kids today…”
Ah, but I’ll jump in. Kids today can look forward to the same autonomic reflexes when they get older. The protesters are taking to the quads in the UCLA campus and the riot police are there. Michael Blood, the AP reporter, has the story. There are differences, though. The baby boomers were faced with the threat of a trip to the swamps of Vietnam to fight against a foe that ended up capitulating anyways when McDonald’s stormed Hanoi. Kids today are fighting against a 32% increase in tuition to fund a fancier campus with bigger dorms, more world-traveling profs, and more latte bars.
One sounds like torture and the other sounds like a pretty good deal. Who would want to fight against more latte bars, climbing walls, flat screen TVs and overstocked labs? Ah, but there’s a rub. No one returned from Vietnam without being changed thoroughly but at least they didn’t return to a lifetime of debt. The vets weren’t greeted with the appreciation they deserved, but at least they didn’t come home to a huge monthly payment that will never, ever go away, even in bankruptcy.
Kids today are starting to understand what’s waiting for them after colllege. The average vet only spent a year or maybe a bit more in Vietnam. Student debt lasts at least 10 years and maybe more. If you screw up and go into default, the blood suckers will slap on so many fees and delayed payment adjustments that you’ll never get out from under their thumb.
So when the kids today hear that the Regents of the University of California are raising tuition by 32%, they know that the Regents are choosing to put a bigger load on their back to keep the expansion going. The Regents are insisting that every student choose the Latte Bars today and live with the debt afterwards. They’re opening up the students throats and stuffing in the fancy buildings, the wood paneling, the student lounges, the pomp, the endless layers of electronic security, and the globe-trotting profs.
So I say, “Protest more. Protest Louder. Ask how much the presidents of the Universities California are making. Ask how much that new chem lab is costing. Demand answers. You’ll be paying for them later.”
Related posts:
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds
BlogoSquare
3 Comments so far (Add 1 more)
One Trackback
[...] I certainly understand how quickly one can find herself on a sudden and unplanned track of “downward mobility,” and I’m pretty sure that most of my readers understand exactly what Ehrenreich is talking about. Many of them are already there and are also part of the indentured educated class. That makes it even worse. (Edububble recently made a compelling argument about why it’s so bad to be a part of this new c…). [...]