Columbia University Students Go on Strike, Issue List of Demands
“alleviate the economic burden on students”
It’s getting to the point where this is becoming a cliché. College students protest and issue demands so frequently that it has lost all meaning.
Campus Reform reports:
Columbia students go on strike, say Ivy League is ‘vampirically sucking every drop of blood’
More than 3,200 Columbia University students have joined in on a strike, demanding a 10 percent reduction in cost and a 10 percent increase in financial aid, as one student claims the Ivy League university is “vampirically sucking every drop of blood.”
This is one of five demands that the students listed.
Columbia University’s tuition rate for the 2020-2021 academic year is $58,920.
The students are demanding that to “alleviate the economic burden on students”, Columbia must “reduce the cost of attendance (including tuition, fees, and room & board) by at least 10 percent.” On top of this, the students want an increase of at least 10 percent in financial aid and the removal of “student responsibility,” or the amount of money the student is expected to contribute to their education through money they pay out of pocket or through student employment.
Speaking on behalf of the organizers, Columbia University student Townesend Nelson told Campus Reform that while the pandemic has made economic problems worse, Columbia charged too much even before that.
“While the pandemic and consequent recession have exacerbated the challenges students face, students—both at Columbia and around the country—have always struggled to afford to go to school,” Nelson said.
He added that the university was able to charge so much because of its reputation. This reputation is what the students are hoping to call into question.
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Comments
Strike all you like. You tuition is prepaid. We’ll hold classes and issue transcripts. Thousands of Asians and Whites are gunning for your seats. Win/win.
Not attending classes for which one has already paid seems to be an odd, almost Python-esque way of protesting. But whatever. Collect your F and never get a transcript that’s on a bursar hold.
That said, I am not unsympathetic to these students. In the 2018-19 hiring cycle not a single one of its newly minted English PhDs gained full-time work in their field. Were I one of them I’d be upset, too.
But surely this crew is smart enough to see that their “strike” inflicts no pain on what they consider “management”? Or perchance not. It causes one to question the value of a Columbia education.
Could it be the emphasis on racial justice and critical race theory made their degrees worthless?
Dear striking and demand-making students:
Your demands are refused. You may return to class, or leave.
1) The Admissions Office has your transcripts. You may obtain one free printed copy when you are going through the steps to withdraw.
2) All students with outstanding fees are to settle all debts at the Bursar’s Office.
3) Those in student housing who have withdrawn have 48 hours to vacate their dorm rooms. The rooms are subject to inspection for damage, cleanliness, and for missing College property.
-signed-
Dean T F Grizzly
Wny call a “strike” as the students are leaving for their winter break? How will Columbia know which students are on strike or how many will stay out when Spring classes start?
Columbia’s financial aid package is like a co-pay or deductible in a health insurance policy. The reason behind co-pays and deductibles are paid by the patient is to keep them aware of the costs of the specific procedures that benefit them. Although it is appropriate to provide financial aid to students based upon family financial need, it is a very bad policy to reduce the “student responsibility” amount to $0.
They’re just figuring out that it’s all about the money NOW?
Let me translate it for you. When students say, “I demand more mental health counselors, I demand more identity group counselors. I demand an increase in grievance studies faculty.” They are also saying, “I agree that this is a good way to spend the resulting tuition increases.”
I remember the student “strike” at Harvard during the Vietnam War, when Nixon gave the order to bomb the VC strongholds in Cambodia. Somehow students, especially at the over-rated Ivy League schools, think they are far more important than they really are. They thought their strike would have Nixon trembling in his boots.
The result of the strike? A bunch of students got “Pass” grades in courses they never actually completed, and the grad students who participated in the strike just got that much farther behind on their research projects. I’ve heard that someone asked Nixon about the student strike, and he responded, “What strike? Who gives a rat’s a**?”
Apparently, they are unaware of the law of supply and demand. If enough of them leave, the price will decrease. Except there exists a boatload of other fools waiting in line to replace them. The school has the leverage here. So, it’s suck it up or hit the road. The smart ones will take option 2.
The “playbook” is for the University to cave because its professors and administrators are as far to the left as the striking students, but money is the lifeblood of the “if you can’t do, teach” crowd and the bloated staffs, so they won’t reduce the tuition etc. other than by a token amount. Maybe this will be like 1968, when Columbia had a disruption and reputedly decided to recalibrate admission policies away from troublemakers, but I doubt it. If this goes on for an entire semester and students demand and get Pass grades or even A’s for courses that they never actually took, the difference now from the past is that a good part of the country where they might seek employment will hold them to account. How are they going to deal with it when they are asked whether they had participated in a lengthy strike and told that if they say yes they are not going to be hired and if they lie and say no they will be found out and fired?
Oh no, how WILL the wheels of productive society continue to turn with this devastating blow?!