Friend,
Welcome back to The PHENOM Update, our official monthly newsletter where we keep you updated on recent goings on in our campaigns and around the higher ed world!
Join PHENOM at Our April 10th State House Rally!
Want to talk to legislators about why they should protect funding for Massachusetts public education? Want to make your voice heard, do real political advocacy, and connect with your representatives? Want to have a great excuse to visit Boston for a day? All of the above?
Then join PHENOM at the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill on April 10th, from 10:30 AM to 3:30 PM (lunch break 12-1 PM)!
The Massachusetts legislature’s latest budget proposal does not provide nearly enough financial aid funding for every student who needs it: despite UMass and other public colleges raising tuition, they are not raising financial aid to keep up. In effect, our already exorbitant public colleges are becoming more expensive for everyone.
At a time when the current federal administration is cutting colleges’ funding left and right and dismantling essential DEI services, Massachusetts must do better: guaranteeing students enough financial aid is the bare minimum.
In response, PHENOM is rallying passionate students, faculty and advocates from across the Commonwealth to win legislators’ support for more funding!
RSVP here so you can help us win the aid our bright students need to succeed! Also, send a letter (pre-written or your own!) to your legislators urging them to support more financial aid funding!
Alternatively, if you can’t join us at Beacon Hill on April 10th, then send written testimony for April 8th’s Ways and Means Hearing instead! Here is more info.
PHENOM’s Panel at UMass Labor Center Conference a Success!
On Saturday, March 29th, PHENOM hosted our panel “Lessons from PHENOM: Strikes, Solidarity & Student-Worker Alliances” at UMass-Amherst’s conference “The Strike: Building Worker Solidarity” to explore the challenges and opportunities for labor organizing in higher education.
Huge shoutout to panelists Henry Morgan, PHENOM’s executive director; Ella Prabhakar, PHENOM’s president; and Stephen Fernandez, a UMass-Amherst engineering professor, DEI Engineering Engagement Specialist, and union member.
Important themes included universities’ divide and conquer strategy (why do there have to be so many different unions in the first place?); unnecessary hierarchies; how to foster greater communication and organizing between students, faculty and staff; the resurgence of unions and the exciting surge in student organizing; and how to move forward under the current political climate.
Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to our amazing discussion!
PHENOM and Allies to Take a Stand Against UMass Tuition Hikes
If the chaos from the federal government weren’t enough, all campuses in the UMass system are raising tuition. In response, PHENOM is looking for at least three allies passionate about this issue to give testimony to the UMass Board of Trustees on April 9th against yet another tuition hike. Considering we also need to persuade the State House to increase financial aid funding, it’s clearly crunch time for pushing back against the defunding of our public colleges.
So why are UMass schools raising tuition in the first place? The justification officials give is rising inflation. But this makes little sense with just a little scrutiny: this is now the 14th year in a row UMass has raised tuition after already raising it for decades.
In the 1984-1985 school year, tuition for in-state students was $1,657 per semester. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online inflation calculator, UMass’ current tuition would only be $4,989.39 if it exclusively increased based on inflation from 40 years ago. Evidently, with today’s tuition standing at $17,357, that is not what has happened.
So has Massachusetts been experiencing 40 years of straight inflation to warrant a fourfold increase in tuition in 40 years? I don’t think so.
This begs the question: how can you say college is getting more expensive solely due to inflation if inflation only explains 1/5th of the increases of the last forty years? And if it’s risen for such unjustifiable reasons year after year, what reason at all is there to raise it again when it’s way too expensive? This is especially at a time when UMass schools are facing persistent challenges like housing crises, overcrowding and aging if not hazardous buildings.
Stay in the Loop and Follow Us on Instagram!
As we work to rally students and faculty across the state to fight for a more affordable, fairer higher education system, social media is the go-to way to keep our allies and communities up to date. Check out our official statewide Instagram page @massphenom, as well as our chapter pages @umassaphenom and @dartmouth_phenom!
In Other News:
Department of Education Office in Charge of Student Loans Severely Gutted
As part of its dismantling of the Department of Education, the Trump administration has crippled the Federal Student Aid Office (FSA). This entity not only manages the $1.6 trillion portfolio of outstanding federal student loans but also oversees loan repayment for 43 million borrowers connected to those loans.
So why is the Trump administration gutting an office responsible for managing the student loans of tens of millions of Americans?
According to experts the author spoke to, the answer is simple: the Trump administration wants to privatize loans in order to extract even more money out of the traditionally public good of education. This is in line with the larger conservative playbook of privatizing the entire education system: from the school choice movement to the privatization of public colleges.
In the ideal world we at PHENOM are fighting for, student debt would not even be an issue. Indeed, for all the critical resources the Department of Education provides students, their own loan programs are also flawed. But when private loan companies are notorious for exploiting vulnerable borrowers (as in the recent MOHELA case), should we be removing the few guardrails they have left?
Some Good News: Elite Colleges Have Been Enrolling More Pell-eligible Students
A promising new study has found that, in fact, wealthy colleges have accepted more and more Pell-eligible students in the last decade. While elite colleges have long neglected to admit lower-income students, this research shows these institutions have made admirable – if still inadequate – progress in educating more students from underprivileged backgrounds.
According to the report, elite schools’ percentage of Pell-eligible students rose from 12 percent in the 2007-2008 school year to 16.8 percent in 2022-2023.
Here is one important quote:
Such substantial endowments, Levine said, give private colleges the resources to enroll and support low-income students. And because those institutions historically haven’t paid taxes under the understanding that they provide a public service, it’s important to examine their willingness to serve those students, he said.
This is why PHENOM supports levying an endowment tax on universities with endowments exceeding $1 billion. The whole reason these institutions enjoy nonprofit status is on the assumption that they will use their money to serve the public as much as possible, which also means educating as many students as possible without sacrificing educational quality.
An Endowment Tax makes sense not just for redirecting elite colleges’ underutilized wealth to more equitable colleges, but also for incentivizing these colleges to admit more students than they have in the past.
More Headlines:
Trump Crackdown Casts Chill Over International Student Programs
How Business Metrics Broke the University
UMass Chan Medical School rescinds dozens of offers amid funding uncertainty