Education not debt

In Tweets, What We Learned at Last Night's Budget Town Hall

2/24/2015

On Monday, February 23rd, over a hundred students gathered in Butler Board Room to engage in a dialogue with the University Budget Committee. This body determines the two-year budget proposal for our school, including the now-commonplace tuition hikes students are subjected to each year. The committee has estimated this cycle's tuition hike between 2.5% and 4.5% each year for the next two years. However, as the cost of higher education continues to skyrocket, students have begun to ask their administrators: when will it end?

Attendees used the hashtag #NotALoan to show student solidarity in the face of rising tuition, rising debt, and inconsistent financial aid packages. Student Government President Sophia Wirth did the math on the proposed hikes, to represent the human impacts of the university budget.

One student told the committee that she would not tolerate rationalization of a tuition hike while high-paid administrators increased their already outrageous salaries. In his first year as President, Neil Kerwin was compensated $1.3 million, while other high-ranking administrators take home upwards of $300,000 annually.

The Budget Committee responded...well...offensively. Specifically to the workers subcontracted by American University.

Meanwhile, the committee announced that the wages of student workers on campus would not be altered to offset the new cost of attendance, meaning that many would have to seek extra work to make up the difference.

Sadly, it soon became clear that American University does not see themselves as responsible for creating a just system and institution of higher education.

Students did not hide their personal stories of financial struggle, forcing the Committee to address tuition and debt as human issues.

Many were worried about the priorities of the University Budget.

Namely, marketing and rankings rather than academics.

While the turnout was unprecedented, many voices were missing from the room.

Despite the Committee's disappointing answers, we still believe we can make AU a leader.

If you believe this University has a responsibility to it's students, join us on March 2nd for a rally for Our University and Our Future.

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Hey, AU: we are students, not customers

2/5/2015

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By Ian Evans
Education Not Debt Coalition, Fossil-Free AU

I walked down the hall, about a hundred yards in total to the three-shower-stall bathroom I shared with about 35 other 19-year-olds. I found a stall and stripped down to face the bitter chill of the bathroom (which was weird because it was in the middle of a huge 7-8 story building. I bent down and turned the shower all the way to the hot side (I knew the hot water wasn’t going to be very warm, because it usually isn’t). To my dismay, I discovered that after a few seconds, the water was still ice-cold. I stood there shaking and shivering, fiddling with the temperature knob as my other arm dangled in the falling water. As I was doing this, I began thinking about my tuition money- and most importantly: where the hell was it?

From the first semester of my first year, I was slapped in the face by an incredible administrative bureaucracy that characterizes the state of “upper tier” American universities. The university decisions are made by a group of mostly rich, old, white men who are real estate moguls, financial executives, and heads of major banks--not the sort of people you’d expect to be in touch with average American students. This group at AU is known as the Board of Trustees.

Last semester, I participated in AU’s powerful fossil fuel divestment campaign. Through that experience, I began to truly understand the economic and socio-political corruption of the University model. The Fossil Free AU (FFAU) coalition was the first student movement in the history of AU to meet with Trustee members in small groups. Nevertheless, the members of the Board failed to truly engage with us. They didn’t answer our letters about the moral arguments for fossil fuel divestment. They refused to return our phone calls. The head of the Finance and Investment Committee called in to the Board meeting at which divestment was discussed; he wouldn’t even show up in person. Members usually refrain from speaking to students, are rarely on campus, and don’t even care enough to show up to discuss an issue that 80 percent of students support. How can they be expected to vote with our best interests in mind if they make no effort to learn about our concerns and priorities? We are the source of 81 percent of the school’s revenue, so shouldn’t they have to care about our interests?

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Admin bucks no trends, but students will

1/21/2015

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By Elli Bloomberg
Education Not Debt Coalition, Student-Worker Alliance

On Jan 2 of this year, American University’s media relations department released a statement entitled, “AU Bucks National Student Debt Trend.” Citing statistics from the university’s financial aid office, the statement’s author concludes that because “only four in 10 students graduate with loans and the average debt for AU’s Class of 2012 declined 8 percent from the previous year,” AU is a trailblazer in making college more affordable. Rejoice, silly activists: the student debt crisis is over.

But is it, really? Even ignoring the fact that a few of the statement’s statistics can be contested—some estimate that around 60% of AU’s student body graduates with debt, not 40%--this self-congratulatory press release does not reflect the reality experienced by many students here.

For example, the author claims that “AU has worked to improve financial literacy among its students, prospective students, and their families by facilitating access to U.S. Department of Education tools that help those considering private loans estimate their monthly post-graduate loan payments before they add to their total debt.” While the infamous AU Central may indeed point applicants to the Department of Education’s website, it also deceives students by offering them inflated financial aid packages when they enter as freshmen, only to decrease the amount over the next four years. If prospective students are not given accurate information about their financial aid, how can they truly make informed decisions about the amount of money they need to borrow? AU’s statement does not address this, choosing instead to paint the financial aid office as a benevolent institution that hands out “Kerwin Money” like those complimentary mints at restaurants.

This specific complaint, while vitally important, passes over the most fundamental problem with AU’s statement: by congratulating itself on supposedly decreasing the amount of money owed by its students, the university is saying that any amount of debt is acceptable. This is not true. By forcing people to take out loans, AU is contributing to a growing national student debt crisis. The total student debt now stands at over $1 trillion—more than the national credit card debt. And behind this statistic are thousands of real people—students who entered college with dreams of a great education and a bright future, only to leave with the nightmare of having to scrimp, save, and starve because a large portion of their entry-level paycheck is going back to the school, the banks, and the federal government.

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call to action:

1/21/2015

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"If we want the workers who enable us to live and learn here to earn a living wage, we need to organize. If we want to prevent the University from investing in the fossil fuel industry that is rapidly destroying the planet, we need to organize. If we want to stop the University from increasing already overbearing tuition and multiplying already debilitating student debt, we need to organize. If we want to do more than just dream of a better world, then we must organize.

And we will."

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In Tweets, What We Learned at Last Night's Budget Town Hall

Hey, AU: we are students, not customers

Admin bucks no trends, but students will

call to action:

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