Oregon students to rally in Salem

A group of Portland State students will travel to Salem on Thursday, April 25, to join a larger rally against student debt on the steps of the Oregon Capitol.

The rally is organized by the Oregon Student Association, a statewide, student-run advocacy group with chapters at many of Oregon’s state universities that has fought for students regarding issues such as tuition equity and child care for student-parents.

Thursday’s rally, however, will focus on student debt and tuition hikes.

“The average PSU student will graduate with [more than] $28,000 in debt,” said Courtney Helstein, PSU’s campus organizer at the OSA. “Even without including interest, that is the highest in the state.”

PSU’s student government, which frequently works with the OSA, is renting two buses to transport the students. The rally is open to any interested student, and buses will return by early evening the same day.

Although some students might feel that demonstrating outside the Capitol will have little effect on their debt and tuition costs, Helstein was quick to point to earlier successes the OSA has had representing students in Salem.

“I think that a lot of students feel that if they just show up for an hour it’s not going to help,” she said. “I would push against that, specifically with tuition equity, which we got passed this year because hundreds of students showed up at the Capitol.”

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber signed the tuition equity bill into law earlier this month, which grants in-state tuition for undocumented Oregon students who have grown up in Oregon and meet a series of residency and education requirements.

Similar bills had been floating around the state legislature for the past 10 years but never cleared the House. The OSA believes their efforts to bring student representation to Salem helped the bill to pass.

In addition to the debt issue, Thursday’s rally will call for a tuition freeze and additional funding for Oregon student grants such as the Oregon Opportunity Grant, which helps many students pay their expenses beyond tuition, such as books.

But key on the agenda will be a call for $850 million for state university funding and $510 million for community college support to fully realize Kitzhaber’s 40-40-20 goal (to create an Oregon where 40 percent of adults have bachelor’s degrees, 40 percent have associate’s degrees or certificates and the remaining 20 percent have the equivalent of a high school diploma) by 2025.

Phoenix Singer, an Associated Students of Portland State University senator, doesn’t believe Kitzhaber’s plan is possible without additional funding.

“It is becoming an increasing burden, not only to preserve funding but to increase funding,” he said. “We absolutely cannot achieve this plan without more investments in higher education.”

In conjunction with the OSA, ASPSU will bring a perspective to these issues that is unique to PSU, Oregon’s largest state university. According to Singer, many of the issues students will address on Thursday affect not only students but faculty and staff as well.

“PSU pays the majority of its operating costs. We just want to make sure the university is paying its faculty and staff adequately,” he said.

Both Singer and Helstein reiterated that Thursday’s rally in Salem directly impacts every student at PSU, and both encouraged interested students to join the rally.

“A lot of students are going to need to drop out, take [fewer] courses or take [on] much, much more debt if we can’t change any of this,” Singer said. “We are a large constituency, and they can’t ignore us.”

“This isn’t an end-all situation, for sure,” Helstein said. “This is just a cumulation.”

Interested students should meet in the Smith Memorial Student Union, room 117, at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. To register, visit aspsu.pdx.edu.