Continue reading »]]> 800 students at UMass Amherst recently wrote personal letters to their legislators.  The letters told compelling personal stories and asked for increased funding for our campus budgets and for financial aid.  After many hours of late night sorting, the letters were hand delivered by students and PHENOM members, and the entire stack of 800 has been sent to UMass President Caret.   Here are a just a few excerpts: 

“I can think of 7 peers of mine on the floor of my dorm alone who had to drop out after first semester due to financial problems.”

“My parents had diligently planned and saved in preparation for my college education.  However, in this time of price inflation, the costs of a college education have exceeded their expectations, and their savings, after being used to its end, will probably only put me through two years.  Although I am more than willing to help out, I find it demeaning that their life’s struggles and accomplishments are not enough to support my education.”

“However if the price keeps going up with no more assistance from the state, I can see this school no longer becoming an option.  I myself go home two weekends a month to work at Berkshire Medical Center to help myself stay afloat while in school, and working so much while trying to get to my studies is quite the burden.”

“Both of my parents are collecting unemployment, and although they are trying to find jobs, it doesn’t look good.  Neither of my parents went to college, so my whole life they have been determined to send my brother and me to good colleges.  We both chose UMass Amherst, but being three grades below him, I got the financial short straw.  I waitress at two restaurants and barely make enough for my rent, groceries, school books and whatever my parents can’t afford of my UMass bill.  I have struggled to get into my prerequisites for my major, causing me to change it 2nd semester of my junior year.  I will be lucky to graduate on time, but paying to stay another year, or even semester, is not an option.”

“I am the second of five children to go to college and already $90,000 in debt from a previous sibling in college.  When my mother came to this country she was able to work and pay off her student loans.  Now, she struggles to help me pay for an education that I need to put me on the right track to being successful.  I am not alone.”

Continue reading »]]> A Generation is Hobbled by Student Debt (New York Times, May 13, 2012)

Ninety-four percent of students who earn a bachelor’s degree borrow to pay for higher education – up from 45 percent in 1993, according to an analysis by The New York Times of the latest data from the Department of Education. ..”If one is not thinking about where this is headed over the next two or three years, you are just completely missing the warning signs,” said Rajeev V. Date, deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal watchdog created after the financial crisis.”

Food Banks Confront Hunger at Community Colleges (Boston Globe, May 12, 2012)

“A lot of students don’t do too well on tests simply because they’re not eating right. But students who eat well can test well,’’ said Stephenson Aman, Bunker Hill’s 27-year-old student government president, who “grabbed some carrots and potatoes and a little yogurt, but not too much’’ for himself from the food bank.

Higher Education is Great Investment by Mary Grant, President of Mass. College of Liberal Arts (Berkshire Eagle, May 5, 2012)

The current national discourse pits the liberal arts against the sciences and professional programs; rather than embracing them as the center of a well rounded education. The fields of science, math, engineering, and technology are deeply rooted in the liberal arts. These fields demand creativity, curiosity, problem solving, and the ability to communicate outcomes and possibilities.

Continue reading »]]> PHENOM joined the Massachusetts Society of Professors in the State House release of an important new research study: Economic Impact of Investment in Public Higher Education in Massachusetts:: Short-Run Employment Stimulus, Long-Run Public Returns, by Michael Ash, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at UMass Amherst and Shantel Palacio of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at UMass Amherst.

[Photo shows Rep. Sannicandro, House Chair of the Higher Education Committee discussing the report with Professor Ash.]

After Prof. Ash and Ms. Palacio discussed the report’s key findings, PHENOM Board members Ryan Manita and Stasha Lampert joined the Legislature’s Higher Education Committee Chairs Rep. Tom Sannicandro and Sen. Michael Moore, and Massachusetts Teachers Association President Paul Toner in commenting on the report and its implications.

The study quantitatively and rigorously demonstrates how increasing public funding of public higher education in Massachusetts will create an immediate increase in the number of jobs in the state, more than alternative uses of the same funds will create; continue to improve employment in the long run through the increased tax revenue that results from more and better employment; lead to a long-term reduction in spending for welfare and other social programs; and create broader social and economic benefits, including greater access to high quality public higher education.

Continue reading »]]> As many as 300,000 students have been on strike against tuition increases in Quebec over the past 3 months, with 180,000 still out on an unlimited strike. Demonstrations of more than  250,000 people have taken place in Montreal.  A massive movement against austerity and for education as a right and not a privilege is unfolding just a few hundred miles from here -- unknown to most Americans since it has been ignored by the mainstream media.  In a small effort to break through this wall of silence, PHENOM helped bring two of the strikers to Massachusetts April 25-27.

Several others had planned on coming as well, but stayed home at the last minute to take part in negotiations with the provincial government -- which broke down very quickly when the government insisted on excluding representatives of the more radical student federation from the bargaining.

Richard Hinton (a graduate student from Concordia University) and Alexia Lewis St-Pierre (an undergraduate from Université du Québec à Montréal) spoke with students and others at UMass Boston, UMass Amherst and Holyoke Community College.

They discussed the long history of student activism in Quebec, the careful year-long preparation that preceded the strike, the local autonomy, provincial coordination, and disciplined decision-making among the various striker organizations, the joyful nature of their movement, and the uncertainty about what lies ahead.  While much is different about their situation, much is very familiar to us -- the unnecessary tuition increases, the government's false insistence that "there's no money", and the understanding that tuition increases are but one part of a coordinated corporate attack on the public sector.

There is talk of organizing a trip to Quebec this summer to learn more and deepen the connections.  Get in touch  if you would be interested in going.

Continue reading »]]> The House passed its version of the 2012-13 budget after adopting an amendment that added $1.1 million to the financial aid account.  This means that financial aid will be funded the same next year as this year.  The amount appropriated for campus operating budgets was not changed and remains the same as this year.  The budget does include a collective bargaining reserve to fund the contracts negotiated by staff and faculty unions.

"It could have been worse" seems to be the general consensus among higher education advocates.   While that is certainly clear when you look at what happened the past few years, it is not a sufficient response.  We have to keep reminding legislators of some facts that are widely known to all of us on the campuses:  Students are dropping out because they cannot afford to go even deeper into debt....Staff and faculty doing more with less reaches its limits....As enrollments keep rising, state support per student keeps dropping.....Higher education serves the collective good and not just the individual.

Thanks to the 800 UMass Amherst students who wrote personal letters to the legislators, to the 600 higher education advocates who packed the State House on March 8,  and to the many people who called their State Representatives in the past couple of weeks.

On to the Senate!

Continue reading »]]> An important new report from Dēmos contains a wealth of data about what they call "The Great Cost Shift:" - the disinvestment in public higher education and the shift in costs to students and their families.

The report begins by saying "This pattern of state disinvestment and increasing costs threatens not just the future well-being of individual students, but also our nation’s longstanding commitment to equal access to higher education regardless of one’s socioeconomic background, as increasing costs are pricing low-income students out of an education."

It ends by saying "Disinvesting in public higher education is a strategy that may realize immediate savings yet impose long-term costs in the forms of decreased social mobility, a diminished middle class, and a decline in long-term economic prosperity."  In between are graphs, charts, and text explaining what has happened, why it has happened, and what the impact is.  Since it includes state-specific data, it is particularly useful for advocates for public higher education.

Continue reading »]]> Between FY2001 and FY2010, state support per full-time student fell 37% in Massachusetts.  Since then, enrollment has continued to increase, state appropriations have fallen, and the student debt crisis has exploded.  With the budget unveiled by the House Ways and Means Committee on April 11, these trends would continue.

On March 8, 600 students, faculty and staff crowded into the State House to ask legislators to do 3 things: increase campus operating budgets by 5%; increase funds available for financial aid by 5%; and include funds for a collective bargaining reserve in order to fund already-negotiated faculty and staff contracts.  We applaud the House Ways and Means Committee for listening on March 8^th, following the Governor’s lead, and doing the third of these.

However, by level funding campus budgets and cutting financial aid, this budget would impose a further untenable burden on thousands of students.  When the legislature cuts campus funds, college administrations reluctantly raise student costs, which are already 30% – 50% higher than the national average, making college unaffordable for many.  Cutting financial aid just as national student loan debt is about to reach $1 trillion is a step in the wrong direction.  Massachusetts already has the 12^th highest average student loan debt in the country.

This week PHENOM and its allies will be filing amendments to the proposed budget that would provide modest increases to campus budgets and to financial aid.  Next week, UMass Amherst students will be delivering 1,000 personal letters from students to their State Representatives.  These letters document students’ dreams and ambitions, and also their stress and heartaches as they see classmates dropping out, class sizes growing, and their own futures in jeopardy.

Our students and their families need the continuing support of our elected officials.