Students Rise Up

From a very young age we are all asked this question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” This seemingly innocent question has an inherently sinister motive, whether the person posing the question realizes it or not. By being asked this question numerous times throughout your developing years it starts to sink into your mind that your life will revolve around your career. That the trajectory of your life, both now and in the future, is about obtaining and maintaining a stable career. With that idea firmly set it’s only natural that when the concept of college is brought up and you are told “Going to a good college is the best way to obtain a successful career” you believe it. K-12 is essentially a breeding ground for college and of course the entire education system is a breeding ground for producing compliant worker bees who won’t shake up the capitalist system. Many gleefully participate in their own oppression, others not so gleefully but regardless we are all forced to participate in order to survive. 

For me, I had many goals and like many other young people was excited to attend college. I have never enjoyed school but I love learning. We are all life-long students, knowledge is power. However, I always felt school squashed creativity and consisted of too many arbitrary rules and busy work assignments, it wasn’t until much later I would realize the full reasoning behind why I had such a disdain for school. Nevertheless, I was excited for college because I believed what I was told and that was that college would help me achieve my goals- I wanted to become a forensic psychologist, I wanted to help people.

I’m sure we all remember the stress of applying to colleges much less the thought of how we would pay for it. I remember wanting to go to a quote “good college” so badly I verbally said I didn’t care how much debt I went into, that is insanity that I obviously back-tracked on but the point is name-brands even make their way into higher education; even though we all know it doesn’t matter where you go to school along as you leave with a piece of paper that says you made it through one of the highest hoops our society has created for you to jump through to prove to your future employers you are “worthy” of earning a wage.

Take it from someone who has applied to her fair share of jobs, it doesn’t matter what you have accomplished you will have to sell yourself as a brand and attempt to prove your worth over and over again just for the chance to earn less than half of the income it would take to live comfortably, to say the very least- it is soul crushing. Now-a-days a degree doesn’t even guarantee you a job, much less decent pay, and most people I know didn’t end up working in the field they studied in, yet we still attend college and go into debt for the chance at having a chance basically.

We have all heard the stories from our parents’ generation, and our grandparents too, about how they paid for the entirety of their college with a part-time job and how a whole year of classes for them would amount to the price of one or two classes for us now. If this was a research paper instead of an article I would love to delve into the history of tuition inflation and how it got this bad but since it isn’t I will encourage you to look into it and I’ll give you a hint as to the culprit- it’s capitalism.

We may have all chosen to go into college for different reasons but we all have one thing in common, we are being taken advantage of. Many of us started plunging ourselves into debt before we even learned how to file taxes. The cost of tuition at most universities, yes even public ones like ours, is disgustingly outrageous.

You may be wondering what I mean by this since with scholarships and financial aid for some of you, especially if you go to school in the state, the cost may not seem too high. To that I counter this- I attended a community college for my first two years before I transferred to George Mason. This community college offered great small classes, writing centers, tutors, clubs, events, pretty much everything a four-year university offers. On top of that I was a member of the Honors College there and that brought with it help with research projects, free trips, the ability to present my projects at research conferences, individualized help from honors professors, free events like going to plays, and much more- one of my research papers was even published.

Many of my friends who chose to go straight to four-year universities were surprised at everything I got to do that they didn’t even have access to yet and all for a fraction of the price. I worked a part-time job my first two years of college and I paid for the entirety of my school- tuition, books, even a study abroad program. Now I ask you this, if all of that was possible at what amounts to less than half of what I pay for one semester at George Mason, why are four-year universities charging so much?

[Side note: I am a senior, I literally already took an English 101 class at my previous college. No, this class is not different from the one I took before. The only difference is the money I pay for this class goes to George Mason. I had my syllabus from my previous class appealed and they still denied it. Apparently, around 80% of people do not pass the test to get out of this class if they have already taken it. Suspicious? I think so.] 

As college students, we have so much stress put on us I think we forget about the recurring monthly bill awaiting us after we graduate. This past year though I have noticed more students paying attention to the outlandish prices of our universities. This renewed focus was sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic when many students started to really question, “where does all this money we fork over to our universities go?” “What are we really getting out of it?” First let me say this, we should 100% not be paying full-price for online school. I don’t care the justifications they give, it is a diminished experience and not what we signed up for and they know it. Second, we should not be paying the prices we are now at any time, online or not.

Much like the working class vs the ruling class we have the students vs the education corporation- and yes higher education has essentially become another corporation in this country. In the same way the working class outnumbers the ruling class, so do us students outnumber those in charge of higher education. That means we hold the power. Most importantly, we hold the buying power. If we withhold our money they will have to listen to us, else they will slowly go out of business. That is why I propose a tuition strike my fellow George Mason students. 

If you want an example of a tuition strike happening right now go look up what is going on at Columbia University in New York. Quoted from an article In These Times, “On January 22, the students at Columbia University in New York began the largest tuition strike in nearly 50 years. With the tuition deadline behind them, students say they plan on withholding payment until the university’s administration agrees to both reduce the cost of attendance and increase financial aid by 10%.” Students all over the country have been rising up against their universities this past year and many have filed lawsuits over the price of tuition.

Overall I do believe a tuition strike would hurt them more and be much more effective. We need to get a large number of students for this to be successful and we would need to make sure everyone went through with it and then set our demands.

Our demands could be tailored to us and our school but the crucial thing is to not back down until they are met. We the students make up George Mason and we have the right to stand up for ourselves. We have overvalued the return of a college degree long enough and we need to seriously pose the question to the school, what are they giving us for our money? We are agreeing to pay for something when we don’t even know the full value of what we are receiving. Where would that fly in any other industry? Would you buy a house without seeing it first? Universities need to educate students on the realities of the job market and the field they wish to go into and just how helpful a college degree might actually be for them. Not doing this in tandem with outlandish prices amounts to a willful scam- we should not put up with this any longer. 

Never underestimate your power- there is power in numbers, we withhold our funds and they will respond. 

(Also if you are reading this and you are currently a freshman, drop out and go to community college first or reevaluate if need a degree to do what you want to do at all- trust me it’s worth thinking about it)