Students protest tuition hikes: Students speak out, Board of Trustees put faces to the numbers

BY ANTHONY JAMES Sr. News Reporter

Approximately 100 students walked out of class last Friday to protest possible financial aid and budget cuts, coupled with tuition hikes.

At noon, students gathered outside the Student Union and Recreation Center (SURC). The Associated Students of Central Washington University - Board of Directors (ASCWU-BOD) provided free pizza and blasted protest songs through the loud speakers, including “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy and “Get up, Stand up” by Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Students such as Alex Cole, junior political science and economics major, also signed up to ride an ASCWU-BOD-sponsored bus to Olympia on Feb. 15 for the annual President’s Day rally. Cole said tuition hikes would impact the quality of his education.

“I won’t be able to take as many classes, and I’ll have to take a second job,” Cole said.

Cole said his grade-point average would be affected and he may have to drop out of school if the costs rise too much.

ASCWU-BOD President Keith James spoke into a bullhorn and urged students to make their voices heard in Olympia.

“Legislators should have to pay for charging us up the wazzu for something that should be a right, not a privilege,” James said.

Chanting slogans and holding signs reading “Fight the hike” and “Voice out against cuts,” students marched to Barge Hall for the monthly Board of Trustees meeting.

About a dozen students made passionate, teary-eyed testimonies about how a second 14 percent tuition increase in as many years, coupled with cuts to financial aid, would affect their finances.

Rebecca Jewell, freshman biology and psychology major, said her middle-class family has been forced into debt and she has had to try to sell her instruments and car to pay for school.

Aryell Adams, sophomore environmental studies and geography major, is a first-generation college student and a volunteer firefighter. Through tears, Adams told the board she will be leaving Central because of increasing costs. Instead, she will attend a school in Kansas on scholarship.

“I don’t want other students to go through what I went through,” Adams said.

Sheila Jones is one of a growing number of non-traditional students. At 53, Jones came to Central looking for a career change after working as a secretary for more than 30 years. The tough economy has cost Jones her job, car and home. She is majoring in sociology and psychology.

“I totally depend on my financial aid and grants,” said Jones, whose oldest child graduated from Central. “It’s an investment not just for you individually, but for society as a whole.”

Chris Goehner, junior political science and psychology major and a student veteran, was accompanied to the trustees meeting by his service dog. Goehner said he has struggled to fund his education with financial aid and the GI Bill, and is concerned about trustees abusing local control privileges.

“As students we’re curious. We want to know: Do we trust you guys or do we not?” Goehner said. “We do read these minutes, we go to these meetings, we do know what’s going on.”

Later in the same meeting, the board approved a resolution giving the president more control to distribute tuition waivers to students in need. The motion passed unanimously.

At the end of the meeting, James summarized the thoughts of the student body:

“There may be no blood in the streets, but there are plenty of tears in this room,” James said.

Central’s Board of Trustees has the option of raising tuition up to 14 percent as approved by the 2009 legislature. That would increase yearly resident tuition by $772 to total $6,289 for the 2010-2011 school year.

In Olympia, Senate Bill 6562 would give university boards of trustees control of tuition increases. According to John McKean, ASCWU-BOD legislative liaison, the equivalent House bill has died without receiving a committee hearing.

Another bill, Senate Bill 6409, would divert part of the state’s lottery revenues into an account to pay for merit-based scholarships and resurrect the state work-study program. But more than halfway through the 60-day legislative session, these bills will still have to pass through both houses of the legislature.