Thursday, March 11, 2010

SELU Students Defend Higher Education March 4th



At my school (Southeastern Louisiana University) two of the activist groups I'm in (National Organization for Change and Southeastern Sociological Association) Organized an open forum discussion about our states budget cuts to education and our school raising admission standards. We invited hundreds of students to come be a part of it. If you watch the video you will see that barely anyone showed up. Why is this? I would argue it is because our society is mostly an apathetic society in which people don't care about being educated or about future generations being educated. It seems obvious that our country is trying to turn schools like mine into diploma mils and the students really don't have a problem with it because it has yet to immediately affect them. Most of them just want to increase their price tag anyway. The consequences of cutting state funding to schools and raising admission standards will severely impact our peoples power to make informed decisions in the future, creating a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. The people who come from poor communities with schools that are not properly funded for whatever reasons and because of that are not properly prepared for standardized tests are going to be forced to go into community colleges or a trade schools against their desire and dreams. I'm not saying those are bad things, but not everyone wants to go to those schools since they create a whole other set of problems for the certain students and have statistically shown to have high drop out rates. I would also like to add that just because you are doing poorly at a underfunded high school does not mean you will do poorly at a well funded university. Schools like my school all around the country are dealing with budget cuts by cutting classes, firing staff and teachers and getting rid of whole departments and at the same time they are raising tuition prices and admission standards!? Who exactly are they trying to attract? Or rather keep it out? Think about it. I'm starting to get very agitated with the students here on campus. Their vision is too short sited and their ability to care almost doesn't exist. When will they stand up for their rights!? When!

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