By Karen Matsuoka
For the Daily Bruin
When approving their platform at the Republican National
Convention, the GOP called “increased access for all”
the single most important issue facing higher education.
Silent on the issue of affirmative action, the platform proposed
to increase access by promoting programs that help students finance
their college education ““ such as education savings accounts,
enhanced tax deductions on student loans and more Pell Grants
awards.
“The proposals are definitely viable and wise ways to
attain the end goal,” said Richard Choi, Vice Chairman of
Bruin Republicans. “I believe all students would benefit from
these proposals, especially lower income families and minority
students.”
UCLA Public Policy Professor Todd Franke agrees improving access
should be the central goal of higher education policy, but stressed
access is not simply about making college affordable.
“It’s also got to be about outreach,” Franke
said. “Once a student is in college, then the money becomes
very important. But if children don’t have the right courses
in high school, they aren’t going to get in, no matter how
much money they have or what their grades are.”
But not everyone agrees with the GOP’s education platform.
Omar Ariaza, a sixth-year political science student, said
Republican measures will mostly benefit wealthy Americans.
“I don’t think the average UCLA student will be
substantially better off as a result of these GOP measures,”
Ariaza said.
The GOP platform proposes to help those most in need through
Pell Grants, which the platform refers to as “the doorway to
learning for millions of low-income families” by increasing
the benefits for students taking “challenging courses”
in the fields of math, science, and technology.
As far as increasing access at UCLA in particular, Franke
expects the GOP platform to have only a limited impact.
“Republicans are making a good faith effort to increase
access,” he said, “but you’ve got to ask
yourself: Will it increase the diversity on this campus? The answer
is no.”
Bruin Democrats President Melanie Ho criticized the GOP platform
for “failing to discuss the importance of promoting a diverse
student body at higher education institutions.”
The 81-page document makes no explicit mention of affirmative
action, but Choi said the party’s decision to leave
affirmative action out of the platform may have been because it was
too divisive an issue.
“There are differing views within all political parties
and … a variety of views are under the GOP’s stance on
affirmative action,” Choi said.
Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson co-authored the platform as GOP
Platform Committee Chairman. Thompson meant the platform to be
“uplifting, exciting, not confrontational, not pessimistic
and not tearing down government but building government,” he
said in an interview on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Ho, however, takes a different view. She said she believes the
GOP firmly opposes affirmative action but “did not voice its
views because it knew it would alienate many Latino and African
American voters.”
The platform also calls for an end to mandatory student fees
where students do not have the option of deciding which campus
groups and activities their payments will finance.
“I believe that many students on our UCLA campus strongly
feel that their student fees are supporting organizations that they
personally do not support,” said Elizabeth Houston, President
of the Undergraduate Students Association Council.
“They see that their organizations are not being supported
by these fees in the same way, and to these students, this is
discrimination,” she continued.
Houston said 22 of the more than 500 student organizations at
UCLA received funding from USAC.
In March, the Supreme Court ruled that the University of
Wisconsin at Madison did not violate the First Amendment rights of
students when it used their mandatory fee payments to finance
campus groups they do not support.
“There are many different arguments surrounding this
issue, but all of it leads us to ask one question: are we being
fair? If not, is there a practical way to be fair?” she
continued.
While she does not claim to have any solutions to the problem,
Houston said the current mandatory fee allocations are unfair and
she praised the GOP platform for bringing attention to this
issue.
“Instead of condemning those like George W. Bush who are
pointing out a flaw in our educational institutions, we should
question those who fight for continued inequality on the premise
that there is no practical solution. That is a weak premise,”
she said.