Hey guys, a little bit of a more tense subject here, but some stuff that needs to be discussed. For those who haven’t heard, basically students from the UC system, mainly UCSC, are having a huge strike. I read a good article that goes over it with some opinions by a blogger name Sarah. The article went over the strike and her opinion. Sarah explains how the grad students are protesting for a cost of living adjustment, giving the name COLA. They are striking for increased wages or decreased housing costs, so that they can comfortably live and go to school.
In the article, Sarah explains that she supports the strike. She explains that she believes the price of college is ridiculous, and that people shouldn’t have to pay such large amounts for an education. She said that she is a UC student, and she is disappointed in the system, as many of the UC employees make over $500,000 a year, and they still won’t give the student workers more pay. She said she would support the strikes if they went to her school.
So I have a couple of things to say in response, and in general, about the strike. I actually know a couple of people that go to UCSC, and have done some research into the strike with people who are in it and have been affected by it. Now first, I do generally support what the people are striking for. The price of tuition and housing in colleges are insane. Many people pay $30,000 a year, totaling up to $120,000 for a normal four year degree. Some people go for longer and pay more, some go for a little less and pay less. Either way, the price for college is insane. This relates to another issue that I actually hear about from one of my friends at UCSC. He lives off campus, and pays around $800 a month for the apartment he lives in. This doesn’t sound like that much, until I learned that he lived with 9 other people. That means that total, they are all paying around $7200 a month. For one apartment. That’s just insane. So the price of housing and tuition are just silly high. This is where I disagree somewhat with what the protesters are doing. They want the school to raise their pay, so that they can afford better housing. While I understand this, I believe a better way would be to get the city to lower rent by having rent control laws put in place. The fact that someone can charge $7200 for an apartment is ridiculous. I understand that it’s more difficult, as it is harder for students to directly interact with city officials, but I think it would be for the better.
My other problems with the protesters are how they are affecting people. I’ve done some looking into what the protesters are actually doing, and they are harming or disrupting the daily lives of a lot of people. They actively block roads, including the main roads into campus, meaning anybody that had to get in or out of campus couldn’t use cars. This meant all the buses were also stopped from coming, meaning anybody without a car had essentially no way of leaving campus, aside from walking a couple miles, which was unfeasible depending on where you needed to go. This is obviously a big disruption to many peoples’ lives. The next issue is that they are withholding grades. One of my undergrad friends had his grades withheld, and he didn’t get anything graded for a while. Honestly, in my opinion, that’s completely unreasonable. Not only is it completely unfair, it’s disruptive to people that would want to support your cause. Why would an undergrad student support a strike that only negatively affects them. I did a little more research, and found stories of people that had grants revoked because they couldn’t turn in grades for those grants. That’s just unfair to those people, and there is nothing they can do about it. Then the protesters will barge into classrooms, and start trying to protest in classes. All of these seem way too rude and disruptive, and to the wrong people. I understand trying to get the message out, and that the point of civil disobedience is to get people’s attention, but they are harming the wrong people. The undergrads I knew were mostly in support of the strike at the beginning, but as they started getting grades withheld, classes canceled, buses stopped, and became unable to do anything about it, many of them started disliking the strike, even hating it.
My bottom line is, I understand the strike, and I do sympathize with them and support them. However, I don’t agree with what they are doing, and wish they would do it in a way that doesn’t harm people that have no part in it at all, such as undergrad students.
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