The Gradient

As the back and forth of the pre-trial activities continue, the degree to which the UC Davis ‘banking crisis’ continues to suck up the campus air is just amazing. In case you live outside Davis, CA, 11 students and one faculty member were arrested after blockading a bank facility on campus. Lots of interesting talk has ensued about the role of the campus (administration) in the arrests. I’ve even learned some new words like “quislings” (used by an english faculty member to characterize a law professor who penned an op-ed on the constitutional generalities of blockades).

The conversational imbalance between: a) convincing the campus to pressure the DA to drop the charges, and b) doing something about the cost of education is just shameful. According to the NYT’s today, student educational debt is beginning to “hobble a generation”.  With more than $1 trillion in outstanding students loans, graduates are moving back in with parents, juggling multiple (frequently low paying) jobs, and sometimes just walking away from it. Student demand is going up, states are cutting educational funding and tuition/fees are increasing much faster than the rate of inflation. Approximately, 9% of all students (and growing) attend for profit colleges, especially after Congress increased tuition payments for military vets.

It isn’t unusual for faculty to become self-absorbed in campus happenings, but in my mind, the biggest issue facing us is the imbalance between the costs of education and what’s available for educating. If we want those two to be closer without relying on creative financing (e.g., higher out-of-state admits), we will very likely have to cut programs and we will have to convince people to pay more. One other thing we could fruitfully take up is the recently released Birgeneau report on breaking up the campuses, thoughtfully referred to as moving toward “local control” on tuition policy to ensure its popularity with the right.