sorry, still on this, but re: my previous tags:
#literally point me to a public national university that doesn't have a ridiculously cheap lunch plan #and most literally have student pensions??? like just because that shit isn't on 'campus' (most unis are spread out across their city) #it doesn't mean that universities and adjacent bodies like student organizations aren't providing support for students #like my university literally offers stuff like free therapy and free veterinary services if you're willing to go through a bit of hassle #they're not ideal systems and i complain about the institution all the time but i have never paid for education y ojalá siga siendo así
i don't want to give a misleading impression, obviously our higher education system is still highly exclusionary, people in towns without universities, anyone below the poverty line regardless of where they live, and even the lower-income sector of the working class are systematically forced out of the national university system, and higher education is in many ways one of the tools that the ruling class has to enforce the class divide.
i have been a full-time worker for the entirety of my academic life and it's been fucking miserable, in the few periods in which i have had the time to participate in organized student activism i have always advocated for wider, broader and stronger housing and student meal programs, as well as bus/train fares and money for reading materials and computers being guaranteed to every student that needs or wants that support. i do believe that universities should be doing way more to actually make higher education a right, and not a privilege of the rich.
but the way to get those things and actually make university more accessible to students whose families cannot or will not cover the costs of their degree is not, and will never be fucking tuition! if we are to have a state that we pay taxes to, its function has to be to guarantee these basic, fundamental rights to all people! housing! food! health! and education! universities cannot be for-profit institutions! education should not be a subject to the fucking free market! it's a public good, and a right, and insofar as a state exists we must demand that it protect and provide these fundamental securities to the people in it.
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
izzy806
