Submission: UC students should collaborate to tackle middle-income struggles

When Danny McElaney checked his BruinBill last year and saw that he had received $140 though California’s Middle Class Scholarship, he laughed.

McElaney, a second-year economics student, has one working parent who makes too much to qualify for financial aid through the University of California, but far too little to cover the costs of education for Danny and his two siblings.

McElaney said he works about 10 to 15 hours per week in Pauley Pavilion during the year plus full time where he can find work during the summer to help cover his tuition and other fees. He still has to take out more than $5,000 each year in unsubsidized student loans – meaning that when he graduates after four years, he’ll be more than $20,000 in debt without interest included.

Every year, thousands of UC students like McElaney have to decide what they’ll need to do to make it through the year to minimize the student loans they take out.

The UC’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan ensures that the tuition of all lower-income students with family incomes less than $80,000 a year will be covered in full by scholarships, grants or other aid money. But above that dollar limit, neither the UC nor the state has any defined band for what distinguishes middle- and upper-income families.

So what comes for the student whose family makes, say, $85,000 a year?

What are we doing to support the students whose families make too much to qualify for financial aid and too little to cover the costs of higher education?

These are our middle-income students.

They are the students who have to decide between buying a chemistry textbook or a healthy meal. They are the students living in their cars and dumpster diving. They are the students photocopying textbooks in the libraries. And they are the students working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

They are the students whom the UC has forgotten.

The state has made an effort to begin addressing the problem with its Middle Class Scholarship, but this program helps helps cover only a fraction of the cost of attendance, and the UC has yet to implement any system-wide program of its own.

Middle-income students come from a diverse variety of backgrounds – they come from families working in a variety of occupations, represent all different racial backgrounds and ethnicities and live in all kinds of neighborhoods across the state.

These are the students who do not receive more than a few thousand dollars of financial aid every year, but also don’t come from families who can pay for their tuition, housing and textbooks out of pocket. These are the students who live in limbo.

Though there isn’t a lot of data out there on what it’s like to be a middle-income student, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with students from across the UC system and hear their personal stories in my role in the Office of the UC Student Regent. Yet, when I traveled to Sacramento earlier this month, I was surprised to find that lawmakers know very little about the daily struggles of this huge class of students. They are largely unaware that middle-class students are the ones forced to face such financial hardship as living in cars and eating out of food pantries.

The stories of middle-income students are going largely unheard – and that’s the first problem.

Without any defined category in the greater conversation about UC affordability, middle-income students often don’t know that they are middle-income.

Unlike many other issues related to the student experience, the issue of middle-income affordability has no organized, grassroots advocacy platform. There is no coalition of middle-income students fighting for help and no network of united student leaders taking charge on the issue.

Middle-income students don’t voice their concerns for fear they don’t deserve the support that they so obviously need.

At the May Board of Regents meeting, Student Regent Avi Oved will introduce a discussion item about middle-income affordability. It is of the utmost importance that we, middle-income students and their allies, claim our stake in this important conversation. Students should be there to make public comment and tell the regents that this issue is real.

We must work with the regents to clearly define a middle-income band and work with individual campuses to establish affordability programs for middle-income students across the UC, like the ones that have already been created at UC Berkeley and UC Davis. The state isn’t taking ownership, so we must.

To middle-income students across the UC: Your struggles are real. Your stories are valid. And your voices deserve to be heard.

To all UC students: It’s time we organize together and raise our voices in support of middle-income affordability. It’s time to put faces to this issue, it’s time to put names to those faces, and it’s time to provide a platform for all students struggling to get by financially to share their stories.

This is our university, so let’s take it back.