Our Future is Not for Sale

On Feb. 26, 2003, Gov. Mitt Romney announced a plan to introduce massive cuts to public higher education, which many critics say would essentially dismember the system.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney plans to fix the budget through massive cuts which will significantly affect public higher education. UMass Boston alone could lose $11 million next year because of the projected cuts.

The governor has said he proposed the cuts in order to ease the budget deficit, saying that public institutions of higher learning have a spending problem.

But according to Our Future is Not for Sale, a campaign to stop the cuts, the governor's plan "would privatize some campuses, eliminate others, slash the state appropriation, and raise tuition and fees to heights that most working class families can't afford."

Five thousand students, faculty members and administrators from public colleges across Massachusetts, including many from U Mass Boston, gathered on the Common April 29 to state their case against Romney's proposed cuts to and reorganization of public higher education.

Facing the statehouse, rally participants from a coalition of 29 state schools and community colleges across the commonwealth waved signs proclaiming, "Stop the Romney Reorganization" and "Stand up for Public Education." They also chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, 20 percent has got to go" to the beat of the UMass Dartmouth marching band's drum line.

If Romney's proposed $42 billion in cuts to public higher education passes, it would mark a 20 percent decrease in government funding to state schools and community colleges.

"What [the cuts] really mean is that one out of every five students no longer has a right to higher public education," Tom Juravich, director of the Labor Relations and Research Center at UMass, told the spirited crowd.

Juravich, who led the rally, said, "If this budget cut continues the only kind of education that's going to be going on is learning how to run the register at McDonald's!"

"Higher education has become like sharecropping," Diane Dujon, director of Experiential Learning at UMass Boston, said. "They don't pay us what we deserve and they raise the fees.... I fully expect a slot machine the next time I go to take an elevator [on campus]."

Tuition at UMass Boston increased $500 a semester for in-state students and $1,000 for out-of-state students following a Board of Trustees vote in March "responding to nearly two years of cutbacks in state funding to the U Mass system," according to the University Reporter. Expected cuts for the upcoming academic year total $10.8 million, on top of $10.5 million that has already been cut since 2001.

The governor's press office offered no comment in response to the April 29 rally. But those attending had plenty to say.

Melinda Emmanuel, a student and active member of the Black Student Center at UMass Boston, addressed the crowd passionately, saying, "I represent the reformed welfare mother...the black woman they said could not be anything." She said that U Mass's urban mission, which promises high quality college education at an affordable price, helped her to turn her life around.

"I'm on fire," Emmanuel yelled. "You are not going to tell me that I'm not going to school."

"When I heard they raised tuition at U Mass $1,000, that is money I would've spent on my children's winter clothes," Emmanuel said. "When I see my brothers and my sisters in Dorchester and Roxbury and Mattapan looking so down I know why.... What happened to our urban mission?"

Students aren't the only ones affected by Romney's cuts. Gary Zabel, an adjunct professor of philosophy at UMass-Boston, said that he, like 65 percent of the teaching workforce which is composed of adjunct professors, is getting paid "hamburger flipping wages" because of a "rotten political system."

"[Romney] wants to dismantle the [public sector] and sell it to his cronies," Zabel said during the rally.

College presidents from other public schools around the state added their voices in protest of the sweeping cuts. Dr. David Bartley, president of Holyoke Community College, called public education "not an expense, but an investment," decrying Massachusetts' rank of 49th in the nation in government support of public higher education. Only Mississippi spends less on public higher education than the Bay State.

Students who attend state and community colleges "were not born on third base," Bartley said. "Our students have jobs, they are diverse, they are from working class families - I don't think we can let this administration balance the budget on the backs of those who can afford it least."

"Massachusetts stands at a crossroads," Bridgewater State College President Dr. Dana Mohler-Faria said to the crowd. "We can choose to invest in the future or divest ourselves of the promise of public higher education."

At least four legislators attended the rally in support of the cause - State Reps. Michael Rodrigues of Westport, Jeffrey Sanchez of Boston, Ellen Story of Amherst and State Sen. Steven Tolman. All are Democrats.

"Public higher education in Massachusetts is in a state of emergency," President of the UMass Staff Association Donna Johnson said. To UMass students and those from other public institutions in the state, she urged, "You are our future, and you must not let [legislators] sell your future down the road."

UMass Boston Chancellor Jo Ann Gora

UMass Boston Chancellor Jo Ann Gora has responded to fears of cuts in previous interviews, saying that the school will not falter in its mission. "UMass Boston, by virtue of the strengths of its faculty and its mandate to award advanced degrees and pursue research at a high level, will remain a significant research institution," Gora said in a letter to campus. However, she added that Romney's proposal now rested in the hands of lawmakers and not her own.

Read more about the cuts' potential effects at "UMass Boston: A Campus United"

NADINE HOFFMAN