Throughout 2009, news reports claimed that the economic crisis was slowly but surely softening; however, students at universities across the globe were drowning in the effects of the crisis, with tuition increases and budget cuts resulting in faculty and campus-worker layoffs. University students around the world did not passively sit and watch as bureaucrats increased tuition rates and made budget cuts; they protested by either picketing or staging occupations of campus buildings. The most publicized of the protests were the student occupations at the University of California on a number of campus locations and the University of Vienna in Austria.

On October 20^th 2009, students and tutors occupied the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna in Austria calling attention to the fundamental problems plaguing their educational system. The occupation of the Academy of Fine Arts inspired other universities in Austria to join in solidarity, such as University of Graz and University of Linz. All the occupations were protests against the authoritarian structures of the school system, draconian budget cuts, and additional tuition fees. Without delay, the occupiers began discussing and debating, putting forward a list of demands to the administration – which included free access to, democratization of, and full financing of universities.

About 6 weeks later, the University of California had occupations at a number of its campus locations, such as UC Davis, UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Berkley. The University of California administration announced late last year that they would be raising tuition by 32% and cutting the budgets for multiple departments. Faculty and staff members have seen layoffs, have had their terms and conditions diminish, and seen a 9-10% pay cut due to mandatory furloughs. This rise in tuition rates and budget cuts was the preferred solution of the school and state bureaucrats’ solution to the economic crisis plaguing the state of California.

The University of California occupiers soon had a list of demands. These demands ranged in scope from the appeal of the 32% fee increase, to making the budget and administrative funds more transparent to the student body at large, to much broader concerns such as the complete abolition of tuition fees, regents, and debt.

As we begin the new year, we must look back to the 2009 student occupations as a leading example of what can and must be done to prevent the representatives of the bosses making us pay the costs of the economic crisis through the slashing of the public-education system, to continue the fight for a fully-funded, free higher education for all who seek it. To achieve this, we must continue to demonstrate, picket, and, if need be, occupy campus buildings in order to put a halt to any and all forms of educational privatization schemes.

A California Coordinating Committee this past November called for a strike and day of actions on March 4 in defense of public schools and against cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs. Students, faculty, public workers, and others must mobilize on this date in solidarity to let the capitalists know we will not sit back and watch them ravage a public service as important as education.

One day strikes and actions, however, are never enough to stop the assault of the bosses and their representatives in government. Only an indefinite general strike throughout the state of California embracing all the varied layers and sectors of the working class and socially oppressed can stop the privatization reforms dead in their tracks. The struggles of workers against the economic crisis and students struggling with tuition payments and exorbitant debt are interlinked. Our battle cry must be, “no layoffs, no cuts in education.”

Not only is such a method effective for such defensive measures, it can secure new gains and advances against those who would seek to ravage and decimate the public education system in the interests of preserving and increasing the wealth of the already super-rich.

The state and school bureaucrats, on the other hand, have shown that they are merely a burden, a drain on the life-blood of education and financial stability of schools. Kick them out! Mass action on the part of working people and students on their campuses and communities can bring down their oppressive and reactionary regime in favor of democratically-controlled organs comprising students, teachers, and campus workers – the only factors required to ensure the effective and healthy running of any college or university.

With this said, not a single tax dollar should fall on the working people to help pay the costs needed to ensure quality, public-financed education for those who seek it. The state government of California must put the costs of public education on those with the money to fund it in the first place: the rich, the multi-national corporations, the banks, financial houses, etc. Tax them heavily to pay for the funding to keep public-educational facilities like the University of California and all other higher-education public schools across the United States affordable to young people and unparalleled in their application of the principles of quality instruction and life enrichment.

If the capitalists refuse to pay, then we should demand that their businesses be nationalized under workers’ control. Their financial assets and holdings should be confiscated to help finance the costs of upgrading the public-school system.

This also means that all student debt must be abolished. It is obscene how much debt is accrued by young people during their time spent earning a higher-education degree. They should not have to bare the burden of debt after seemingly just getting on their feet.

Education is a right, not a privilege of the sons and daughters of the rich, the capitalists. By uniting the struggles between workers and students, we can defeat the forces seeking to return America to the times of the Gilded Age when only the very wealthy were able to afford an education for their children. Together we can transform the dilapidated and crumbling infrastructure associated with the public-school system into a well-financed, well-maintained institution, ensuring the highest standards of academic excellence.