SMCCD Students call out inequities of rising
tuition costs in California higher education

On a rare warm and sunny day in August, the Skyline College Quad was the scene of a successful teach-in on the rising costs of higher education at both the CSU’s and UCs and also the recent, significant tuition increases affecting our own international students in SMCCCD. (See Undergraduate tuition soared for first half of 2000s before stabilizing. Now it’s climbing once more, CalMatters, April 2024.)

CSM Students and faculty protest the Vietnam War with a peace march to City Hall – May 8, 1970.

A teach-in is a participatory, action-oriented event that combines college-style instruction or speeches with protest. As early as 1970, during the Vietnam War, AFT 1493 has collaborated with SMCCD students to protest injustices in a variety of ways, and this event, facilitated by students with union support, was no exception.

At this teach-in, recently graduated student organizers Celina Buncayo (Skyline) and William Maisonpierre (CSM & Cañada), who in Spring 2024 completed organizing internships with our local, collaborated with AFT’s Marianne Kaletzky and other college faculty union members.

The students, who had first visited the college library to do some historical research, began by explaining the California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 and summarized the historical, upward trajectory of tuition hikes that began with Governor Ronald Reagan in 1966. 

Student activist Celina Buncayo

Invited student panelists Felix Rowell (SFSU), current Skyline College international student MeMe Hlaing Oo from Myanmar, and SJSU graduate student Matthew Dumanig all spoke strongly, both against public education as a business, and to call out the many ways students can organize with campus and cultural organizations to bring attention to the inequities brought on by tuition increases, especially for marginalized students.

William Maisonpierre poses questions to the audience.

Hlaing Oo, a member of Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA) and Myanmar Student Union and also a peer tutor in the Skyline Learning Center, rejected the stereotype of international students as wealthy, pointing out that many SMCCCD students are from countries like Myanmar which continue to experience significant poverty and political and military unrest. She shared having to work three jobs in order to meet her living costs and international student tuition payments of more than $5,000/semester.

Skyline College faculty Kolo Wamba and Rika Yonemura Fabian, AFT Co-President

Students in the audience were challenged to imagine what their lives might be like if higher education in California “was once again free?” They also shared experiences of having to stay out of school or do without books because of rising education costs. 

Joined by faculty and staff, students in attendance listened carefully while also completing assignments from their instructors about equity in higher education. 

About the event, Skyline College physics instructor Kolo Wamba shared, 

“I think an important takeaway [from the teach-in] for me was that students actually “get it.” Meaning, they understand that tuition hikes are anti-democratic and that fighting back effectively will require building solidarity across campuses, districts, and even systems. And that doesn’t just mean solidarity between students — it’s also about building dual power together with faculty, classified professionals, even ordinary members of the community.”

While military recruiters looked on from across the quad, in reference to the current conflict in Palestine, participants concluded with several rounds of protest chants that included calling for money for education, not war.  

An army recruiter looks up as anti-war chants begin

Our union extends our special congratulations to AFT interns Celina on their transfer to UC Berkeley this Fall and William on his admission to Whitman College, and to all of the student organizers that day who reminded us not only that education is a right, not a privilege, but why demonstrating for social justice in education matters.