Around 40 students and faculty from California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) participated in a CSU-wide walkout Wednesday to protest the CSU Board of Trustees decision to raise tuition for students by 6% annually for the next five years.
Some students chose not to attend their afternoon classes in order to protest the CSU’s decision, which was made last September. The walkout, organized in joint effort by Students for Quality Education, the Abolitionist and Decolonial Learning Collective (ADLC) and Students Against Tuition Hikes, took place from noon to 2 p.m., in front of CSUMB’s Otter Express, garnering attention from those who passed by.
“I think it’s very important to show that we can all come together and fight for the same issue,” said Damian Austin, a third-year environmental science student who walked out of his class in support of the protest.
The organizers of the walkout created a list of demands to the university including a reversal of the tuition hike, public involvement by President Vanya Quinones to stop increased education costs and greater transparency and student input in how university funds are used.
Holding posters that read “free education, now and forever” and “we pay your salaries,” demonstrators marched past CSUMB’s administration office while chanting slogans such as “down with tuition hikes, up with student rights.”
“Students are just becoming poorer and poorer and they’re getting charged more and more,” said Cheyene Howell, a first-year psychology major.
Some students used sidewalk chalk to express their frustration with CSUMB administration’s role in the tuition hike, writing personal notes to Quiñones and Vice President of Administration & Finance Glen Nelson outside of the administration office. Members of the ADLC reported that facilities was called to remove the messages from the sidewalk shortly after, but many of the messages remain.
More on this story in next week’s issue of the Lutrinae.
