Ohio University students rally together against the OHIO Guarantee, which will raise the tuition rate by 5.1 percent for incoming freshmen this fall.
Many Ohio University students find themselves right in the middle of a problem that has plagued higher education institutions throughout the United States.
The state cuts its share of funding to public universities, which raise tuition to make up the difference. That prompts students to take out more loans, carry more debt and potentially default. Their credit scores nosedive, affecting their borrowing ability and, in turn, their overall quality of life for a period of time.
Somewhere along the way, a student gets frustrated, grabs a picket sign and joins an angry group of dissenters, some of whom have even been intentionally arrested to bring attention to the cause.
“To get arrested resisting a tuition hike is to illustrate a refusal of a norm,” Ohio University Student Senate President Megan Marzec said in an email. “It is the rare moment where a student’s raw power as a free-thinking human is visible to the people who refuse to listen to us any other way.”
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Marzec has encountered several run-ins with law enforcement for protesting: once in April 2013 and again in January 2015. For her most recent charge, she and two other protesters were given a suspended sentence of 30 days in jail. If they are arrested again, they might have to serve that sentence.
Tuition increases aren’t new to OU and neither are the protests that have sought to freeze tuition rates for decades.
In 1970, students fought against tuition increases in the midst of a “financial crisis” during which the university also faced decreased state funding, budget deficits and salary freezes.
Since then, tuition for in-state students has increased from $660 per year to $11,548 for the upcoming academic year.
Kelli Oliver, a senior majoring in commercial photography, said she will graduate in May with more than $100,000 of debt.
“Higher education changed my life, for better and for worse,” Oliver said. “I’ll be paying off $100,000 for close to the rest of my life.”
As a member of OU’s Student Union, Oliver has been fighting to freeze tuition in hopes that future students won’t be faced with the same challenges she and her peers are experiencing.
“Now, as I’m graduating and I’m talking to my other friends who have graduated and can’t open a bank account, and can’t get a car or get a cellphone because they’ve defaulted on their loans, it’s starting to hit me,” Oliver said.
The Student Union is working to raise awareness for programs such as the university’s new tuition model, dubbed the “OHIO Guarantee,” which offers a flat rate for four consecutive years.
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The union has been involved in rallies, teach-ins and comedy shows to start conversations on campus about student debt, said Calvin Fulton, a freshman studying plant biology and Student Union member.
“It forces people to acknowledge that there is a problem,” Fulton said. “Really, when it comes down to it, if we actually could make a unified demand, there would be nothing that anyone could do to stop us.”
Despite Student Union protests, the Board of Trustees voted in favor of guaranteed tuition at its Jan. 22and 23 meetings. The implementation of the OHIO Guarantee’s 5.1 percent tuition increase will affect next year’s incoming freshmen at the Athens campus.
“We’re definitely still fighting,” Fulton said. “The hope is that we can kind of take this frustration we all feel and channel it to continuing to build, continuing to move forward.”
The Student Union plans to continue asking the board to revoke guaranteed tuition, as well as working to prevent other universities from implementing similar models, Marzec said.
In future rallies, Marzec urges the student body to “vocalize their opposition in a way so inconvenient that it forces the few that are able to make decisions to heed to the demands of the masses.”
The tuition-related protests early in the semester inspired AVW NewsTime’s Rally Against Rallying, a mock rally that poked fun at activism.
“I have nothing against protesters and what they’re doing,” said Evan Swingle, producer of NewsTime and a senior studying biology. “The problem is the administration doesn’t listen to them, and we’ve seen that.”
Swingle said recent protests have become too repetitive and suggests that activists get creative with new activities and methods to reach a broader audience.
“It’s the same people frustrated for the same reasons going out and having the same discussions that they always have,” Swingle said. “I think the more students are involved, the more success we’ll have.”
@mayganbeeler
