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Our View - Protest funding cuts to higher ed
Editorial Board
Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: Opinion
Monday morning a conglomeration of students from almost every university in Colorado piled onto buses and into cars to storm the capitol in Denver, their voices rising in a resounding "No" against the Joint Budget Committee's Friday decision to cut $300 million dollars from the $600 million higher education budget.
The nearly 200 students, who represented CSU-Fort Collins and Pueblo, Mesa State College and every institution in between, said their message to Colorado legislators was simple, that the would do whatever possible to protest the "de-funding of higher education."
And while it may not seem as if students have the political sway to alter the fiscal future of Colorado, the state budget known as the Long Bill, which was introduced into the Senate appropriations committee Monday, still has to travel a long road before being signed by Gov. Bill Ritter.
In order to convert students, faculty and community members into opponents of a bill that could potentially close the doors of those universities unable to combat the effects of sever budget reductions, the Collegian will print a running tally of the number of days higher education funding has been in peril and where in the legislative process the bill currently stands.
We are hoping that as the days creep on and the bill makes its way through the legislative prongs, the sinking feeling in the bottom every reader's stomach will increase exponentially, thus motivating every individual to find their voice, call our state legislators and members of the JBC and protest, vehemently, this lethal bill.
The Long Bill will spend a week in Senate and move on to the House of Representatives next Monday. With this we say: Exercise your democratic rights -- make those calls and join the protest.
The nearly 200 students, who represented CSU-Fort Collins and Pueblo, Mesa State College and every institution in between, said their message to Colorado legislators was simple, that the would do whatever possible to protest the "de-funding of higher education."
And while it may not seem as if students have the political sway to alter the fiscal future of Colorado, the state budget known as the Long Bill, which was introduced into the Senate appropriations committee Monday, still has to travel a long road before being signed by Gov. Bill Ritter.
In order to convert students, faculty and community members into opponents of a bill that could potentially close the doors of those universities unable to combat the effects of sever budget reductions, the Collegian will print a running tally of the number of days higher education funding has been in peril and where in the legislative process the bill currently stands.
We are hoping that as the days creep on and the bill makes its way through the legislative prongs, the sinking feeling in the bottom every reader's stomach will increase exponentially, thus motivating every individual to find their voice, call our state legislators and members of the JBC and protest, vehemently, this lethal bill.
The Long Bill will spend a week in Senate and move on to the House of Representatives next Monday. With this we say: Exercise your democratic rights -- make those calls and join the protest.
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