As first noted here last week, when students heard about Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s tuition tax, they took to the Tweets rather than the streets. A few more Web sites have gone up since then, and these are more focused on political action than on bitching on someone’s Facebook wall.
CMU students have assembled a “Stop the Tuition Tax” Web site, complete with city council phone numbers, sample letters, and an online petition.
Over at the University of Pittsburgh, meanwhile, grad students — who’ve been often overlooked in the debate so far — have launched an online petition opposing the tax.
And if you’re browsing the internet anyway, check out this story about how the higher-ed community is watching Pittsburgh grapple with the tuition tax. One takeaway here is that whatever you want to say about Ravenstahl’s proposal, the city is on the cutting edge of something:
Other cities are trying to find some way of generating tax revenue from the thousands of students who study there each year. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino launched a task force in January to standardize and increase voluntary payments coming from the city’s colleges and universities, as well as its hospitals. David N. Cicilline, mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, this spring proposed a $150 per semester tax on students at the city’s four private colleges.
The Association of American Universities (AAU) first warned its 62 member institutions of the coming wave of municipalities looking to tax higher education about 18 months ago, said M. Matthew Owens, an associate vice president for federal relations.
As for the student activism … there will be a special council meeting about the tax at 1:30 p.m. today. It’ll be interesting to see how many students log off and show up for it.
While I’m on the subject … how come nobody gets this worked up when their colleges jack up tuition by 6 or 7 percent a year?
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.
Here’s another question. No, it’s more of a statement.
How come many of the students bitching about the tuition tax are driving late-model cars, wearing clothes from Abercromie & Fitch, have iPhones that cost a minimum of $69 per month and carry $2,000 laptops?
Yeah, I know that a lot of college students are just scraping by. But seriously, some of these folks seem to find money for everything except for paying the city of Pittsburgh. Just sayin’, is all.
Hey, Area Man:
I don’t own a car.
I don’t own A&F clothes.
I don’t have an iPhone.
And I have a 4 year old laptop I bought for $1,200 with graduation money.
I work two jobs and am a full-time student.
I barely afford to pay my rent and utilities and have thousands of dollars in debt from loans.
My parents help out when they can, but I’m doing this on my own.
Get off your high horse and realize that you might see a few students like that, but there are many, many more who are in serious debt and unsure what the future holds for us.
I’m just sayin’…you’re an ass.
I appreciate your weighing in, Pitt Student, and as someone who has dealt with student loans well into the five digits, I appreciate your plight.
But since you’ve stopped by, I’m curious about your answer to my original question. Why is there so much more outcry about the city tax, when tuition hikes prompt so little reaction — even though they often cost much more?
That’s a hell of a question, Chris, and one to which I allude in last Monday’s TRM post.
What I most wanted to know, however, is why the universities are suddenly so fiercely protective of their students’ wallets, when they annually jack up tuition at rates far higher than 1%.
As I noted, Carnegie Mellon practically dislocated its institutional shoulder last February, patting itself on the back for enacting its smallest tuition increase in 35 years.
That increase: 2.94%.
And it was accompanied, we should note, by a 2.89% increase in room and board costs.
Pittsburgh’s university presidents don’t want the Mayor to fleece their students, perhaps, because they like doing all the fleecing themselves.
@ Chad — an effort to provide an answer is here:
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A72024
@ Chris
I read your follow up blog post and I think you started to nail it. There is usually an outcry, albeit small and not always loud, whenever there is a tuition increase. However, like you said, the problem comes whenever the city (read: Kid Mayor) comes to students and basically says, “You don’t do anything for Pittsburgh, so we’re going to tax you so you can fix that.”
UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh are big job suppliers for this city. Without students, that is nothing.