Student Loan - Loans and Debt Consolidation

UNITE TO DEFEND EDUCATION SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

As the global economy stumbles deeper into crisis, baldly revealing the bleak future capitalism has on offer, youth across the globe are moving into open revolt. With unprecedented budget cuts raining down everywhere, the struggle over public education has emerged as the main battleground.

In the last two months of 2009 alone, one website documented 168 significant student protests, mostly in Europe but also in California, New York, and elsewhere.

This spring, students in Puerto Rico occupied and shut down university campuses there for weeks, forcing the government to give concessions. Meanwhile, the South African Student Congress attempted to shut down nine universities demanding free education.

The movement in the U.S. reached its high point so far on March 4, when students and education workers in over 33 states organized hundreds of protests against the budget cuts. In California, where the movement was strongest, picket lines shut down UC Santa Cruz and all the big universities were rocked with significant protests.

Unions of K-12 teachers and campus-based unions endorsed and participated. Some estimate actions took place in a majority of K-12 schools in California, including the afternoon walkout of 5,000 teachers and students in San Francisco. This led into a rally, endorsed by the San Francisco Labor Council, of 20,000 against attacks on education.

March 4 united the student movement with public-sector union activists in the most signi...[more]