No Budget Cuts!

Heading into another school year, students and campus workers are told to prepare for even more budget cuts and tuition hikes. This time, state legislators are cutting all public services to the bone. Attacks on everyone’s right to an education are being waged. These attacks are not only in the form of service cuts and fee hikes, but also include the continued denial of undocumented students’ access to higher education, as well as the increasing efforts to resegregate and privatize K-12 schools.

At UNC Chapel Hill, students organized a week of action leading up to a demonstration on March 4. On March 1, the ad-hoc March 4 coalition organized a street theater action on campus that showed the massive amount of student debt — on average $18,000 per student in North Carolina. On March 3, a campus discussion on local and national education cuts and tuition hikes was held.

About 60 students, workers, and faculty members gathered on March 4 for a “Funk the Cuts” rally followed by a march to the administration building. Chanting “No cuts, no fees, education must be free” and “They say cutback, we say fight back!” the march swelled up the front steps of the building. Once there, a group of nine students held a sit-in inside the building, presenting the chancellor with a statement and list of demands, including chop from the top, no privatization or commercialization of the university, an increase on corporate taxes to fill the budget shortfalls, and for full and equal access to education for undocumented students.

Nine students staged a sit-in in South Building, which ended after nearly an hour with no arrests. The chancellor agreed to meet with students to discuss their demands in two weeks.

On March 4, tens of thousands of students and workers across the U.S. will be taking action against budget cuts, tuition hikes, and the privatization of education as part of the March 4 National Day of Action to Defend Education. From California to New York, Chicago to Tuscaloosa, Boston to Milwaukee, Seattle to Knoxville, Gainsville to Asheville, and all points in between, students and workers will be standing up and speaking out on March 4 to defend education in what is shaping up to be one of biggest days of action this country has seen in years.

On Facebook:

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By Scott Williams

On Nov. 19, thousands of students, workers and faculty on campuses across the University of California system protested and blockaded a meeting of the U.C. Regents, where the regents approved 32 percent tuition and fee increases, furloughs of campus workers and continued budget cuts. Several days of huge protests, seen throughout the media, ended with nearly 60 arrests and showed the potential of opposition to the “business as usual” attacks on jobs and education by the U.C. administrators.

On Nov. 20, protests intensified as six buildings across the U.C. system were occupied by students. Students demanded the recall of fired housekeepers, more money from the state of California for education, and many more extensive demands based around their right to education, jobs and affordable housing.

At the University of Illinois, graduate student workers voted to strike on Nov. 16. Just two days later, after thousands of workers participated on picket lines and hundreds of classes were cancelled, the 2,600 graduate students won tuition coverage and wage increases.

Letter to the Editor of the Daily Tar Heel about Budget Cuts Crisis

The university is finally taking a step in the right direction by “chopping from the top" and cutting 900 administrative positions across the UNC system. However, these cuts came only after job and benefit cuts for many workers, including housekeepers and groundspeople, for years.

The university should not raise tuition for anyone in this period. While in-state tuition rates are limited by law, out-of-state rates have risen close to $20,000 a year.

We believe that education is a right, just like it is asserted in the UN International Declaration of Human Rights. With the proposed tuition increases, UNC shuts the door to higher education for hundreds of current and potential students who will no longer be able to afford attending this university. These tuition hikes will hit those of us who depend on financial aid and those who work to pay for school the hardest. The university should find the money it would raise from these tuition hikes from the salaries of its richest administrative staff.

We are seeing skyrocketing tuition and dramatically fewer class sections needed to graduate, and at the same time the U.S. continues to spend hundreds of billions of failed wars and occupations, rather than fund education. On top of that the state government refuses to tax corporations, even though there is little real evidence that low tax rates keep jobs.To make things worse, there are fewer jobs for young workers to pay off their debt.

It is time for our generation to take back our education and declare loud and clear, "Education is our right!" But as history has shown, only those who struggle to defend their rights have any hope of attaining them in reality. We must organize to secure our right to an education and to a future.

WHEN: Thursday March 26, at 11:45am
WHERE: The Pit (Rain Location, Carolina Union)
RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=75729300239&ref=ts

Demanding transparency and accountability, UNC community to protest education cuts and layoffs
Students, faculty, and workers to demonstrate at Board of Trustees meeting Thursday

Chapel Hill, NC - A broad coalition of students, faculty, and university workers will protest the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday, March 26, in opposition to planned layoffs, cuts to programs and services, and increases in tuition. On March 19, Chancellor Thorp instructed all campus departments to make permanent budget cuts of at least 5%, which will have deep impacts on student services across campus, class sizes and availability, and will result in dozens of workers losing their jobs and hundreds more positions being left unfilled, which will put a huge strain on already overworked employees of the university. The protest will demand transparency and community involvement in decisions relating to the budget crisis, and that the University uphold its standards as a public institution by serving all members of our community - not corporate entities. The protesters will convene in the Pit at 11:45am (Rain location in lobby of the Carolina Union), then march to the Board of Trustees meeting at the Carolina Inn.