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Why is it that neoliberal banks and corporations are bailed out while students are squeezed of every last penny by predatory student loans amidst our financial feeding frenzy? On March 4th, over 400 students, community members and professors protested on the Park Blocks of Portland State University in solidarity with a national call to defend public education. Several student groups in collaboration with student government organized the rally as a direct response to the proposed economic deregulation and restructuring of PSU.
Students feel that the state funded institution is augmenting corporate interests while diminishing the quality, affordability and access to higher education. Students demonstrated their bravery by walking out of class at 1pm to express their heightened level of disgust and indignation with administrative ineptness and bureaucratic subterfuge. Speakers discussed the financial mismanagement of the education system in order to keep those who might be agents of social change in debt and bondage.
Local drumming troupe; Powder Keg led students, faculty and the public in a rigorous display of resistance to the neo-liberal capitalist vision of 'education' presented by the administration and board. The crowd proceeded to march across campus, occupying the hallways of the administration offices. There they presented the following demands agreed upon by students at all three of the universities in the Oregon University System: Read More >>>   
March 4 PSU Student ProtestThe speakers at the rally articulated our opposition to adopting the public corporation model for our public universities. Barbara Dudley, a PSU professor and longtime activist, told us that OHSU, after embracing the corporate model, has raised its tuition fees so much that they are now the most expensive medical school in the country. She informed us that the plan to corporatize public universities has been around for a long time, and not a recent response to the financial crisis which occurred in 2008. Ronald Reagan wanted to implement it when he was governor of California in the 1970s, so that students would become so heavily in debt that they would have no time to be "troublemakers." This is a form of "structural adjustment" that many countries face, including Haiti. Wael Elasady, Co-founder of SUPER (Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights) and PSU student activist, asked why billions of dollars are wasted by our government on wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, but when it comes to funding public education, we are told that there's not enough money. It costs about $1 million a year to deploy a soldier to Afghanistan, and $49,000 a year to incarcerate a prisoner in California. Why should students have to bear crushing debts or be denied access to higher education when the bloated military defense budget keeps getting more funding, including Obama's recent budget plans? He called for an end to wars and occupations, to the enthusiatic applause of students. Read More >>> (this one has lots of pictures) See all the pictures here Click here to read a related article Check out the Berkeley Protest Below
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