Instead of working on exams, students peacefully demonstrate about possible fee increase at Powell Library study-in

BY JASMINE HILL

Monday night, close to 400 UCLA students gathered at Powell Library to do one thing: study. This study-in, put together by the student government and community activist groups, was peaceful, did little to disrupt studying, and was a chance for students not to get tased, nor to scream, nor to chain themselves to a building, but to study. Many may ask: Why a study-in?

The answer is that Monday night, students were demonstrating, but in a very different way than what we’re used to. Through the study-in, we symbolically showed that we value our education and, above all else, want to be here.

Many talk about our generation’s apathy and the challenge in mobilizing the Facebook age. Yet, as the frenzy of an overcrowded Powell Library confused our student population, our volunteers were able to discuss with curious students the reason for the sit-in. We gathered at least 200 signatures for the petition, educated folks on the issue and communicated our demands to students who, before the sit-in, were unaware that their education was at stake.

In the coming weeks and months, our demands could not be clearer: We want an end to fee increases. While the University of California correctly evaluates the decrease in state support when discussing our budget, it rarely, if ever, factors in the revenue raised with student fee increases.

We want more inclusion and involvement in the decision-making process. How does the UC expect to ask us to pay more and not expect us to ask where and how that money is being spent? By placing a student on the Investment Advisory Committee, the UC will acknowledge that students are a key, if not the key, stakeholder in the university and have rights to participate in the discussion of our funds.

Finally, we want the UC to recognize the adverse effect that fee increases have on the student population.

Our undocumented brothers and sisters are experiencing the fee hikes more disproportionately than the rest of us. We want institutionalized aid to be open to all UC students so that the 32 percent of our fees that goes to financial aid is accessible to everyone who puts into that pot, regardless of citizenship status.

What should belong to all of us will soon only belong to a few if we continue to act like affordable education is a privilege as opposed to seeing that the ability to be educated is a public right.

I appreciate everyone who came out. I hope that, amidst an alternative approach, you saw purpose in your presence there. Please engage others in the conversation, prepare yourself for a long-term battle (that can be won) and see yourself as the leader in your education. It will be your ideas and innovation that create the university we all want to see.

Jasmine Hill is president of the Undergraduate Student Association Council.