PHENOM played a major role in organizing the EDUCATION FOR THE 99% action in Boston on November 2. A major focus of the action was on the Student Debt Crisis.
Total outstanding student debt has doubled in the past five years and increases by $1 million every 6 minutes. Banks are making big profits as mushrooming interest charges lead to distorted career choices and increasing poverty. State cuts to higher education lead to increased fees and increased borrowing and make the problem much worse for those on public campuses. Here is how the action was explained to passers-by.
But this does not just affect public college students. It affects those at private colleges as well as at public ones; it affects alums; it affects workers trying to put their kids through school; it will affect the broad economy as more people with more debt have less to spend.
PHENOM, in conjunction with Jobs with Justice, Mass Uniting, SEIU, Occupy Boston, UNITE-HERE and others, hit the streets to shine a spotlight on this issue and how it connects with other aspects of the corporatization of higher education.
Rallying in the financial district, making a stop at the Harvard Club, and marching to the State House, we demonstrated – through our signs, through street theater, through speeches, through our passion – that banks need to be held accountable and politicians need to work on solutions.
We are the 99%! See the Boston Globe’s coverage.