From California to Chicago, A Call for Unionized Universities

[mike_c]

1. solidarity with all my sisters and brothers in academe....

My union is in contract negotiations now, too. We understand that hard assed bargaining is only half of the solution-- we MUST convince state legislatures to reinvest in high quality, low cost public higher education. In my state, California, many of the legislators who today vote time and again to cut public investment in education were themselves the direct beneficiaries of the state compact for higher ed that created the California State University as the "people's university." Low cost, high quality university education, accessible to all qualified citizens. Those same legislators, after going to school themselves for free or at vanishingly low cost in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, now force tuition hike after tuition hike on students and parents by cutting state investment in higher education. An investment that, in California, returns more than four dollars in revenue generation for every dollar spent. Today, we invest more in prisons than in higher ed. How wrong headed is that?