By snoadmin
SAN DIEGO – Students from various community colleges gathered at San Diego Community College on the outskirts of downtown Monday and marched one mile to City Hall while chanting against the proposed higher education budget cuts.
The 30-plus group held signs and chanted as many on lookers stopped to watch the protest.
San Diego’s demonstration was one of several statewide protests on Monday – the largest being in Sacramento – organized by a coalition that united all three tiers of California’s public higher education system in protest: the California State University, University of California and California Community College systems.
“The message that we are trying to sent to the Senate is, ‘Hey, find something else. Don’t budget cut us, don’t increase our cost. Take it out somewhere else,” said Cassaundra Ifrid, a freshman political science and business administration major at Grossmont College.
The rallying to fight against the cuts was led by the Student Senate for California Community Colleges (SSCCC), Region 10. At City Hall, the SSCCC had four speakers who addressed the proposed budget cuts and stirred up the protesters.
“Over 50,000 students that attend community college will be affected by the budget cut, along with other state-funded institutions,” said speaker Alma De Castro, a student from Southwestern College who helped organized the rally.
Another speaker, Jess Durfee, called the proposed education budget cuts a neverending cycle of a state budget crisis that once again is challenging the obligations and responsibilities the state has to fund its education system. Durfee is the chairman for the San Diego Democratic Party.
The San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees supported the rally. Its president, Marty Block, spoke to the crowd and said that not all politicians want to cut education.
“I am amazed and disgusted about the cuts to education. The only thing that can save this country is education, and we keep cutting and short-handing it,” said Carmenmara Hernandez-Bravo, a professor of language and literature at Saddleback College in Orange County.
Wendy Hutson, a returning adult student at Grossmont College, shared her story of returning to college after 33 years of being a “displaced homemaker” so she could get a degree in higher education administration and make more money. She said that is what it is all about: making money.
“The budget cuts that we are looking at are going to have drastic effects on all of us in one way or another,” Hutson said.
Video of students in San Diego involved in the coalition.
RELATED STORIES:
