Seven University of Akron students marched against student loan debt Thursday as gusts of wind ripped neon protest signs out of their hands on a cold, dreary day.
The meager group joined thousands in the “Million Student March,” a national movement demanding that student loan debt be erased, tuition at public colleges be abolished and students be paid at least $15-a-hour at on-campus jobs.
The demands are steep. Student loan debt is more than $1.2 trillion. Ohio lawmakers have frozen tuition and are forcing cost-reducing cuts. But the average four-year student still racks up nearly $30,000 in debt before being handed a degree.
Meanwhile, cuts at UA have rallied protesters to repeatedly demand the removal of the school’s new “Polytechnic” label and the man who put it there, President Scott Scarborough.
“This will be my fifth protest,” said Love Gwaltney, a 31-year-old nontraditional student who characterized her focus on anthropology and women’s studies as prerequisites for a “troublemaker’s” degree.
Gwaltney doesn’t expect Scarborough to reverse the rebranding of UA as “Ohio’s Polytechnic University,” a move that some argue unfairly prioritizes science over the arts. Nor does she see the cost of college dropping.
Tuition might be frozen, but fees and textbook prices are out of control, protesters said.
Gwaltney also doesn’t expect many students to turn out for protests, even if they support the demands. “I talk to people and they don’t like it,” she said. “But they don’t do anything about it.”
Accosting debt
The local protest was coordinated by the Ohio Student Association, a statewide student advocacy group.
Member Kasey Serrano stood behind a neon poster that read: “Wall Street got bailed out. Students got sold out. Thanks, Sallie Mae.” The sophomore warmed her hands on a My Little Pony mug filled with hot apple cider and spoke coldly about her future.
Since middle school, Serrano has associated college with success — and debt. Now 19, the biology student has racked up $30,000 in student loans.
“It’s scary,” Serrano said. “I don’t know anything else I could do. School, my parents, they all said to go to college. If I don’t, I’ll be poor.”
Nationally, student loan lenders are owed more than credit card companies.
Serrano thinks erasing $1.2 trillion in student loan debt and making public colleges free is realistic. “Yeah,” she said. “We have so much money in our government being wasted on stupid things. Education should be a priority.”
Whether through discounts on housing and tuition or with cheaper online options for middle, high school and college students, Ohio’s universities recently released innovative ways to decrease the cost of higher education by 5 percent, per the state’s request.
But the universities’ principle complaint has been stagnant state support. The Student Impact Project, a nonprofit group that advocates college affordability, gives Ohio an F for “state aid to students.”
State lawmakers have slightly boosted funding this year. But overall support for Ohio’s higher education system remains $345 million below peak funding in 2009.
Capitalizing on the outrage, Michele Bline passed out Bernie Sanders buttons to the students Thursday. Her support of a socialist presidential candidate couldn’t have come to a better place at a better time.
“I’m here to support these kids,” Bline said. On her shoulder a Sander’s campaign button read, “Education should be a right, not a privilege.”
“Is everyone here registered to vote?” she asked.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @DougLivingstonABJ.