What Goes Around
Comes Around
By
Rodolfo F. Acuña
[Thanks to http://bit.ly/1uBglh0]
On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet in
cooperation with the CIA led a military coup assassinating constitutionally
elected Salvador Allende and unleashing a reign of terror that in the first
year conservatively murdered over 11,000 people. By 1982 neo-liberal wunderkind
Milton Friedman declared that dictator Pinochet "has supported a
fully free-market economy as a matter of principle. Chile is an economic
miracle".
Pinochet along with "the Chicago Boys" -- free-
market economists—set out to convert Chile into a free market, reducing the
role of the state and cutting back inflation. According to Pinochet, Chile would become "a nation of entrepreneurs."
A la Ronald
Reagan, Pinochet set out to privatize Chile and make education a marketplace.
As a result, Chilean education became among the most expensive in the world. The outcome was dismal and Chile’s
primary school system ranks 119th of 144 countries. Students could not afford “to graduate, and even those who attain
degrees seldom earn enough to pay off their debt.” (Sounds familiar?)
A reason why education became unaffordable is that higher
education was privatized and it received limited public funding. In 2006
students took to the streets in what became known as the Penguin Revolution – the students wore black
and white uniforms, carrying signs “education
is a human right.” Not seduced by minor victories, they continued to fight
for free education.
Protests erupted again in May 2011 with an eight-month
long occupation of college campuses. This escalated into a sustained,
three-year nationwide movement. At its peak, 800,000 students flooded the
streets and were supported by 81 percent of the population.
Under the leadership of Chilean President Michelle
Bachelet, the Chilean Congress passed a law that by 2016 education would be
free. Congress approved a corporate tax
hike that will generate $8.2 billion in new revenue. (The U.S. defense budget
was $581 billion in 2014). History had judged Milton Friedman and his “Chicago
boys.”
What goes around
comes around.
Change
did not come about because the political process worked. Politicians did not
conceive the change. It was the students taking to the streets and spreading
the attitude, “we are fed up and we are
not going to take it anymore,” that brought this about.
American
students could learn from Chileans and develop a moral vision that
included education as a human
right. Chileans did not blame themselves
for the crippling debt and the ineffectiveness of their government.
The
demonstrations were nationwide and they lasted years. As one critic put it,
students got politically involved and several of Chile’s student leaders serve
in the Chilean Congress “whereas the US Congress is mainly composed of older
millionaires, many of whom receive campaign funds from for-profit schools like
the University of Phoenix.”
Another difference is that the United States is the
citadel of neoliberalism where the 1 percent has achieved an ideological
hegemony. The sad fact is that American
students will not be effective until they share a “moral vision” that demands
education as a right.
In the fall of 2015 California State University at
Northridge will be designated as an impacted campus. The term “impaction” has
been around for some time and can apply either to majors or specific
campuses. “Major impaction means that the number of applications from fully
eligible students to a designated program or major on a CSU campus during the
initial filing ...” Campus impaction occurs when the number of applications
received exceeds the number of available spaces. However, this is not always
true and neither are the consequences.
Roughly from what I have been able to learn, CSU San Luis
Obispo has been impacted for over a decade. San Luis Obispo has raised its
admission requirement from a 3.0 GPA to a 3.2. Departments have the option of
turning away students.
The rationale behind impaction is that by limiting and
cutting enrollment campus costs will be reduced. Campuses are under the
illusion that the governor, the legislature and the Board of Trustees will then
increase their budgets. Impaction mainly
affects first year students but includes other transferring students. The goal
is to reduce the size of the university by one percent a year over the next
seven years.
In theory students turned away from CSUN have the option
of attending a non-impacted campus, for example, CSU Stanislaus, which may be
okay for a student with substantial family support, but for poorer students of
any race it is a hardship. For undocumented students, it is near impossible.
It gets more insidious with majors. At many campuses
students may be admitted on a "pre-major" status. Before getting
admitted to the major, the student must complete the lower division courses
prerequisites for admission to the impacted major.
It is divisive and pits students against one another and
divides them. Minority opposition to impaction has nothing to do with lower
standards for admission. They are demanding their rights and asking for equal
access to a quality education. Impaction has the potential of being a means of
managing enrollment and gives racist members of individual departments the
power to avoid diversity.
There is nothing new about this form of social
engineering. In 1985, Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds sought raise entrance
requirements claiming that this would force the public schools to offer
required classes. Thanks to the Latino community, students and California
Legislators opposition to Reynolds’ proposal slowed it down and in the end her
initiative proved to be a complete fiasco.
The only ones that will gain are for profit colleges and
rich corporations. According to The Huffington Post for profit colleges
from 2007 – 2012 spent a combined $39.6 million on lobbying. By 2012 “For-profit colleges … collected $32 billion from the federal government through programs
like Pell Grants, while many students failed to graduate. Among 30 companies
investigated, 41.8 percent of revenue went to marketing, recruiting, and to
profits while only 17.7 percent towards actual instruction.”
Meanwhile, according to The Nation Magazine, “For-profit schools are driving a national
student debt crisis that has reached $1.2 trillion in borrowing.” Senator
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has said that for-profits “own every lobbyist in town.” Mitt Romney strongly endorsed the
industry in 2012; he has financial ties to for-profit colleges Vatterott and
Full Sail University. In 2013-14, House Speaker John Boehner was a top
recipient of for profit money.
Giving the devil his due, Provost Harry Hellenbrand
resisted impaction, he lost and is retiring. I will not be alive to see what
went around come around. It will take a long time because neoliberalism is too
well entrenched. For there to be change, American students have to develop a
moral vision – Education is a human right.
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