Students gathered last Wednesday in the South Park Blocks to rally against budget cuts and rising tuition. The Portland Coalition to Defend Education planned the event on the May 4 anniversary of the Kent State massacre and the 1970 student strike at Portland State.
“Tuition has been going up anyway everywhere else,” said PSU senior Andrew Nieman, who was eating lunch in the Park Blocks. “I’d rather not see it go up. In other countries, it’s free, but our economy and government isn’t set up that way.”
The event came three weeks after PCDE hosted the Carnival of Debt, another protest. The coalition’s zine outlined a list of goals, including a halt to increasing class sizes and cuts to faculty members’ salaries.
Tasha Triplett, a senior at PSU and a member of the coalition, announced to the crowd that she has more than $85,000 in student debt.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” she said. “The bad news is that while we know that budget cuts and tuition cuts are destroying public education all across the world, these same measures are terrorizing Portland’s entire educational community…The good news is that we can stop it. One day, when my grandchildren ask me, I want to tell them that I fought like hell.”
Triplett and other PCDE members encouraged students to complain to PSU President Wim Wiewel. A table with form letters was set up.
At the end of the rally, ASPSU president-elect Adam Rhamlow spoke to the crowd.
“We’re battling a 9.2 percent increase for in-state students and a 6 percent increase for out-of-state students,” he said. “These increases are not forecasted to stop at all. They don’t stop. They won’t stop. Unless we protest, unless we’re out here and we have numbers and we write letters, we organize, and we send signals to the state of Oregon and to the university that we need more support.”
A PCDE member led students in a chant: “No cuts, no fees, education should be free.”
Karen DeVoll, an adviser at PSU, stopped on her way to Smith Memorial Student Union to watch.
“I feel so bad for the students, and because of the economy, they aren’t getting jobs right away,” she said. “I’m glad to see this rally.”
Musician ExtraAlonE provided entertainment, playing his drum set with a gas mask on. ?