University of Kentucky college students go on hunger strike over food insecurity. UK President Eli Capilouto makes $790,000 per year.

More than sixty students at the University of Kentucky began a hunger strike this week. Some will go cold turkey (so to speak) and take nothing but water and edibles required by medical necessity--which I presume will not include Snickers. Others will restrict themselves to one meal a day.

Why are they refusing to eat? Are they calling attention to the student loan crisis, which has destroyed the lives of millions? Are they calling for student-debt relief? Are they asking for student-loan debt forgiveness?

No, they are going on a hunger strike because they might get hungry! Well--that's not quite accurate. Actually, the strikers are protesting what they say is the university's inadequate response to students' food and housing insecurity.

These are the strikers specific demands as reported by a local newspaper:

1) They want UK to establish a Basic Needs Health Center "focused on helping students with housing and food-related challenges."

2) They want the University to establish a Basic Needs Fund, which would distribute small cash grants to students with food or housing issues.

3) Finally, the strikers want the university to hire a full-time person dedicated to helping students meet their food and housing needs.

UK's president, Eli Capilouto, roused his public relations staffers from their slumbers, and the PR team pumped out a suitably sensitive and vapid public response. Here is a sample:

"[W]hile we may disagree in some of our specific approaches [to hunger]," Capilouto purred sympathetically, "we will never disrespect the concerns that have been raised or those who have raised them."  So--no tear gas or pepper spray. That's a relief! No one wants to get tear gassed on an empty stomach.

Capilouto went on to say that UK had cut the cost of its most popular meal plan and expanded the operating hours for the university food pantry. He also said the university was raising money for an emergency fund.

"These next steps are a beginning, not an end," Capilouto assured the strikers. "This is a journey we are on--as a campus community and as compassionate, caring citizens in a larger world."  Don't you love that journey bullshit?

And then President Capilouto concluded his feeble statement with a flourish: "After all, we share the same goal--a commitment to making progress  in ways that ensure the health and wellness of our students as we prepare them for lives of meaning and purpose."

Wow! I give President Capilouto and his PR hacks an A minus for producing a hunger-strike response that is as flavorless and boring as the ramen noodles his students are eating.  (I deducted a few points from his grade because he didn't include the words "transparent" and "inclusive.")

I don't mean to make light of food insecurity on college campuses. In spite of the fact that students borrow on average about $37,000 to get their college degrees, they sometimes fall short on grocery money. But isn't  that what the UK food pantry is for?

Let's take a closer look at what the UK hunger strikers are demanding: "A Basic Needs Center focused on helping students with housing and "food-related challenges." But UK has a student-housing staff and people in charge of the campus dining halls. That's not enough?

And the strikers want small financials grants--apparently to meet food and housing emergencies. But isn't that what the federal student loan program is designed for? And part-time jobs, for that matter.

But the strikers' last demand is truly ludicrous. The strikers, delusional perhaps due to lack of protein, want UK to hire ANOTHER ADMINISTRATOR who will be dedicated to "addressing students' food and housing needs."

I'm sure UK will be happy to comply. Heck, it might hire a half dozen new administrators to staff a Basic Needs Center.  Sure it will cost money, but UK can always raise its tuition; and students will simply take out bigger student loans to absorb the cost.

Why do you suppose the UK protesters didn't call a hunger strike to protest the student-loan crisis and the outrageous cost of going to college? You know why. UK would probably turn the fire hoses on them.

And here's a footnote. President Capilouto--Mr. Sensitive--makes $790,000 a year. That will buy a lot of ramen noodles.

President Capilouto--Mr. Sensitive--makes $790,000 per year.

Paul Krugman's Advice for Aiding College Students is a Little Thin

Far be it from me to criticize Paul Krugman’s advice on economic issues. After all, Krugman received the Nobel Prize in economics, and I did not.  (I may have gotten the Boy Scout merit badge in Personal Management.)

Krugman, writing in today’s New York Times, reviewed the dire situation of many college graduates. As Krugman rightly pointed out, many are saddled with huge student loans and can’t find jobs.

Personal Management Merit Badge

“What should we do to help America’s young?” Krugman asked.  “We should be expanding student aid, not slashing it.”

With all due respect, Mr. Krugman’s advice is a little thin.  Expanding student aid will not do American young people any good if it is disbursed in the form of student loans that they are unable to pay back.  And pouring more money into an unreformed higher education system is a waste of resources.

The Cal State student hunger-strikers have put their finger on the problem.  We need to freeze college tuition and reform the universities.  We can start the reform effort by cutting back on the exorbitant salaries our universities pay senior executives and administrators.

Of course there are lots of other things we can do to straighten out the student-loan mess and help young people obtain college experiences that will help them get good jobs.  But simply saying we should expand student aid, as Mr. Krugman suggested in today’s New York Times, merely endorses the status quo.  That is how we got into this mess, and we now have one trillion dollars of outstanding student-loan indebtedness and 37 million student loan debtors.  

References

Krugman, P. (2012, April 30, 2012). Wasting our minds. New York Times. 

Cal State Students Plan Hunger Strike to Protest Tuition Hikes: Let's Hope They Don't Get Pepper Sprayed

"Let them eat pepper spray"

According to the Los Angeles Times (Rivera, 2012), students at six Cal State campuses vow to go on a hunger strike Wednesday in protest of rising tuition costs.  Their demands are quite reasonable. They want tuition costs frozen for five years and a rollback on excessive administrators’ salaries.

 A Cal State spokesperson, displaying the tone-deaf response so typical of California university administrators, said the hunger strikers don’t understand the issues.  This reminds me of what Marie Antoinette is said to have remarked about the poor people of Paris: “Let them eat cake.” 

We should give these courageous students all our support.  And let us hope university police officers won’t pepper spray them.

References

Rivera, C. (2012, April 29). With tuition hard to swallow, Cal State students to go hungry. Los Angeles Times.  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0429-hunger-strike-20120429,0,6584621.story