Friday, November 7, 1997
UC system’s privatization a bitter pill to swallow
BUDGET: School system fails needs of students through elitist
policies
By Kendra Fox-Davis
As a public institution, the University of California has
committed itself to providing access to higher education to all of
California’s residents. A public institution has a contract with
the public. We, as the public, pay the taxes that have enabled
California’s public university system to progress from its
beginnings in small, two-year colleges to the vast system of junior
colleges, Cal State universities and UC campuses it now is. In
return, the university is expected to provide educational
opportunities to the public. It’s like a reciprocal relationship
that works for everyone. But what happens when one party in the
contract decides one sector of the public is valuable, and the
other unworthy of being educated? What happens when one party of
the contract grows to encompass people of all races, incomes, and
genders – people who were not the public the university originally
wanted to educate? Does the contract become void in the presence of
"too many" immigrants, "lazy" poor students who just don’t work
hard enough to get the average 4.2, or the inability of the state
to reduce classroom size and deliver quality education to
undeserving areas? Or does the contract, like our taxes, remain and
can we expect that the university will change how it provides
opportunities to those who are in most need of opportunities?
As a high school student, my perception of different types of
schools existed only in terms of "good" and "bad." UCLA was pretty
good. Los Angeles had good weather, the school had a high ranking
and most students I met voiced a commitment to the community. I
thought I was coming to an institution that had all of the great
resources of a private college without the elitism. Therefore, I
was going to an all-around "good" school. For four years I have
been proven wrong, and in a more drastic way each year. Public,
unlike private universities, have the goal of providing higher
education to the public . In California, the promise of UC schools
is to provide opportunities to all potential students. Public
institutions have an obligation to ensure equal access. It is an
obligation that encompasses those who would be denied an education
because they cannot afford it, cannot relocate, or cannot access
information that would prepare them for college.
The government’s promise to educate the public includes
providing a space for academic development in the form of campuses
that are not overcrowded or distributed only in certain regions, as
well as providing students with the tools they need to prepare for
college. The promise to the public is not only that the university
will educate but that it will reach out. The partnership with the
public does not begin at the entrance to this campus but at the
doors of every primary and secondary school in the state. It is a
partnership whose goals are the educational development and
progress of each state.
We must analyze the concept of "public" and the promise our
university has made to California’s communities. Is dedication to
the progress of all students worthwhile? If it is, and if our
institution is to stand by its contract with California, the system
is failing. The public school system, and particularly the UC, in
its move toward elitism and away from needy students, has abandoned
its promise. I guess the poor are welcome in public hospitals and
the needy are minimally sustained through public assistance and
students who cannot afford private primary and secondary schools
can enroll in public schools, but the UC’s definition of public is
different. But of course we can’t have truly public universities
because that would mean everyone could go to school. There would be
no one to go to jail.
My opposition to the privatizing of public institutions is an
opposition to the abandonment of the basic principles of public
education – that everyone has a right to go to school. Instead of
the open, accessible public University I was proud to attend, I
leave an increasingly elitist, inaccessible private school. Going
private is as much a change in ideology as it is a change in actual
structure.
The ideology, or beliefs, that support open access to education
would manifest in effective outreach programs for the educationally
disadvantaged. It would manifest in reducing the cost of education,
so that the public might receive back some of what we put into the
educational system.
On the other hand, an ideology that supports privatization would
manifest in reducing access through increased competition in
academic requirements that far exceed what is required to get out
of high school, in financial costs that make education impossible
without incurring huge debts for low-income students. Looks like
the UCs are going private.
This ideology of privatization is reflected structurally in a
shift from looking at the university as an education institution to
a for-profit business. UCs aren’t just schools anymore, they’re
corporations where students are the commodities. We make money for
the institution through our fees, research and labor. A larger
example of this can be seen in the merger between the UC San
Francisco Medical Center and Stanford’s Medical Center. According
to the University of California Student Association, this merger
took a UC public medical center that delivered over $60 million
worth of care to the uninsured in 1995 and made it private. That
means that the private board that now controls the center could
decide it’s too costly to house medical residents and interns.
Certainly the uninsured populations in the areas that UCSF had been
serving will find their care reduced substantially. Should the
university take a hospital that belongs to the citizens of the
state, a learning place for students, and make a private for-profit
health center?
The emphasis on profits over education trickles down from the
upper echelons of the UC administration to the lives of students.
The feelings of isolation and alienation in huge classrooms, and
being reduced to student ID numbers are legitimate feelings
students are experiencing as a result of going private and valuing
profits over providing quality education for the state of
California. When our University turns its back on its promise to
the public, students everywhere lose.