State budget battle begins: students protest massive cuts in Harrisburg

By Eric Gibble
March 28, 2011

Hundreds of students gathered on the steps of Pennsylvania’s Capitol alongside professors, union leaders and legislators to protest the drastic cuts to public higher education.

Governor Tom Corbett’s 2011-12 budget proposal drops funding from $465.2 million to $232.6 million, a 50 percent decease, according to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.

It also includes a 50 percent cut in institutional assistance grants for private higher-education institutions from $30 million to $15 million.

Students from across Pennsylvania converge on the state capitol on March 28. They were joined by their faculty, parents, legislators and union leaders and called for an alternative to Governor Tom Corbett’s budget. --eric gibble/news editor

Louis Lopez, Lock Haven University history major, came to the rally to express his frustration. The cuts could force him to drop out of college next year.

“They [my parents] are right now working 12 hour days to put me and my sister through college and this is unacceptable. If this goes through, we can’t go to college. Everything that my parents would have done would have been for nothing,” Lopez said.

Balancing work and her academic responsibilities is already a challenge for Shippensburg University social work graduate student Jamie Showers. She said the cuts would force her to re-evaluate completing her degree.

“I already have to work part time and have a grad assistant job on campus that gives me very little just to get school paid for. And already our tuition is being raised.”

Showers also said her husband was helping her pay for education and these budget cuts would take a toll on their financial situation.

“If tuition goes up even more I don’t even know how we’re going to be able to afford our home, our bills,” Showers said. “I don’t think that I would be able to finish one more year of school.”

As Lopez and Showers stood alongside other public university students, leaders from these universities testified before the House Appropriations Committee on the consequences of the cuts on their schools.

“There’s something wrong with a system that dedicates more funding to its corrections institutes than our educational institutes,” Frank Snyder, Secretary-Treasurer of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, said to the crowd.

The animosity towards Corbett was evident with chants of “where is Corbett” and “cut Corbett” coming from the crowd, referring to him as the enemy of Pennsylvania.

Kevin Mahoney, associate professor at Lock Haven University and vice-president of their Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties chapter expressed his disappointment with the governor.

“He’s declared war on the citizens of Pennsylvania. He’s basically said, ‘No, we’re cutting off your future,” Mahoney said.

The debate should also move from cuts to revenue enhancements according to Mahoney.

“We don’t have a budget problem. We have a revenue problem,” Mahoney said.

State Senator elect, Judy Schwank (D., Berks) stated that Pennsylvania remains the only state among the top 15 natural gas producers without a natural gas extraction tax.

“It’s not right. It’s not fair, not while we let gas drillers and big corporations get away with not paying their fair share too,” Schwank said.

The crowd agreed with a reoccurring chant “tax our gas.” Showers noted the high environmental and infrastructure cost natural gas companies are imposing on the state.

“There are multi-billion dollar companies that are actually being detrimental to our environment, to our state, that aren’t being taxed. That gap needs to be closed,” Showers said.

The lack of investment in education concerns Showers because she fears the cuts will only bring a trickle-down effect.

“Education is such a huge foundation for people to be able to get jobs, to get off welfare, to stay out of prison. It’s proactive rather than being reactive.”

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Eric Gibble

1 thought on “State budget battle begins: students protest massive cuts in Harrisburg”

  1. Pingback: selected news coverage from this week’s rallies « APSCUF-KU xchange

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