One of our greatest contributions to human history is under attack.
Throughout history, in times of struggle and confusion, our community colleges have consistently provided us with the greatest gift of all — the opportunity for everybody to have a chance at higher education.
But the end of our community colleges may be approaching.
Our state government is slashing education like never before, while continuing to raise a prison budget that is second to none. On top of that, we have war-hungry men in the White House who continue to increase the military budget and drive us toward war.
The choices made by our elected officials will deny thousands of us in the community college system our education and threaten what makes institutions like De Anza College great.
It’s long overdue for us to ask ourselves, “Is this the kind of world we want to live in?”
Right now, we live in a world where President Bush increased the military budget by $48 billion last year.
His newly-fabricated threats in Iraq, North Korea and Iran are only a tiny fraction of the threat that the Soviet Union was. Yet we were able to end that conflict peacefully with a military budget only slightly higher in proportion than what we spend today.
California Gov. Gray Davis is currently planning to make unprecedented cuts to community colleges leaving De Anza $10 million in the red.
But he isn’t cutting a thing from prisons. In fact, he is planning to give prison guards a 30 percent raise over the next five years according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
We now live in a state that can provide a jail cell for anyone who commits a crime, no matter how small it may seem, because the prison industry, a direct contributor to politicians like Davis, needs to make a profit. Anybody can see how much more important this is than having an educated society in America, right?
The emphasis on education is why there have been over 10 prisons built in California in the last two decades and only one college.
Furthermore, our incarceration rates have exceeded those of any other country, cementing the opportunity for historians to one day refer to these times as the “era of incarceration.”
We have a chance to make our voices heard, to remind the world that the spectacle of collective action is what real power looks like.
The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition is calling for nationwide shutdown of all major campuses across the country on March 5 to protest this injustice.
Could you imagine what the world would be like if only a fraction of the billions set aside for war were redirected to education?
Imagine if all people felt like they actually had a chance to develop their democratic voice and could truly participate in society? What would the world be like if a young person’s dreams were considered more sacred than building prisons and making war?
Can you imagine the implications of giving anyone and everyone the incredible power of knowledge and learning?
Continuous and impassioned debates about affirmative action for college admission show just how desperately our society wants access to higher education, and yet, society is still often denied . In a world where we can split the atom and fit the supercomputer of yesteryear into something the size of your palm, we should be ashamed that we can’t provide a good education to all who desire it.
In the end, it is up to us. We need to show the government and the world how much we value our education before they make decisions on our budgets in the next few months – decisions that will affect our society for generations to come.