Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

From Draft NOtices, April-June 2015

—Amanda Jordan
    

Student debt is an important deterrent that keeps students from considering social justice work after college. Rather than investing time or intellectual curiosity in social justice and peacemaking, after graduation my peers focus on “paying dues to The Man” rather than fighting him.

However, this has not always been so. Many people can remember when the University of California and other public colleges had almost token tuition costs. The high number of students protesting the Vietnam War and engaging in other social activism in the 1960s and 1970s stimulated a response from the Right to quell student demonstrations and commitments -- in the form of high tuition.

Since 1978, the cost of tuition in higher education has surged 1,120 percent, according to Bloomberg Business. Compared to the rising costs for medical care and food, and taking into account inflation, higher education costs are completely out of proportion. For-profit schools, which are increasingly popular, spend a disproportionate amount of money on marketing as compared to actual educating. Both public and private schools are spending more money than ever on administrative and facility costs, taking away tenured academic positions and replacing them with administrators and part-time professors.

The effects of student loan debt ripple throughout the wider economy. High student debt creates a culture of fear among Millennials, making us cautious toward risk and therefore slower to buy homes or make other large purchases. Even more prominent is the idea that graduates should not pursue what interests us intellectually, instead focusing all of our energy into an occupation that makes the most impact on our student loan debt.

Read more: Student Debt and Activism

From Draft NOtices, January-March 2015

— Luis Villanueva Rodríguez
    

For many, the September killings of three and disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in the Méxican state of Guerrero has been profoundly painful and tragic. My feelings of outrage and despair are also deep because I was educated in one of Ayotzinapa’s sister schools. What many do not realize is that this crime was perpetuated by the Méxican government against students who had important social justice concerns and who were soon to become activist teachers. These rural teachers’ colleges are known for their progressive beliefs. I have always understood my role as a social justice teacher and community advocate because of my education at these schools. There are important political and historic aspects to the recent events that most people outside of México are not aware of.

The school these students came from, Ayotzinapa, is part of a vital and historic education system that was born out of the Méxican Revolution of 1910-1917. Because of the essential role that campesinos played in the success of the Revolution, the new government developed a plan to address the lack of education in the poorest rural communities all over México. Government-sponsored boarding schools were founded for grades one through normal schools (teacher colleges). Originally separated into boys and girls campuses, hundreds of thousands of México’s teachers have graduated from these schools. To this day, it is at these schools that the poorest citizens of México become well educated, learn of the inequalities and injustices in their society, and develop into engaged, justice-seeking teachers. These inspired teachers create awareness in their own impoverished students, which then becomes a threat to the government that seeks to keep its population passive and unquestioning.

Read more: Kidnapped Student Teachers in México: An Inside Perspective