March takes funding issue to Capitol

Written by Caitlin Gibbons
(cgibbon4@mscd.edu)
Photos by Leah Millis & Andrew Bisset
(lmillis@mscd.edu, abisset1@mscd.edu)

Students rally to support budget cap elimination

More than 100 students gathered March 9 to march to the Capitol in support of increased funding for higher education.

The event, sponsored by the Student Government Assembly and the Associated Students of Colorado, rallied students to show support of Senate Bill 228, which proposes to eliminate a state spending cap, put in place by the Arveschoug-Bird provision. A-Bird, as it’s called, only allows the state’s general fund to grow by 6 percent a year from the previous year’s amount.
The mission of the ASC, according to chairman David Dorey, is to work toward accessibility, quality and affordability — all things that are threatened by Arveschough-Bird.

SGA President Andrew Bateman asked students to “show we value education.” Bateman said governments “love to ignore students” because students never speak up. If they did not speak up, Bateman said, students would continue to take enormous cuts for higher education, cuts they can’t afford. SGA handed out T-shirts and signs at the Tivoli Commons before the march. The SGA budgeted $10,000 for the march, according to Vice President C.J. Garbo. However only approximately $3,000 of the budget was used. A final tally of the costs was not available at the time of publication.

The march led students down Colfax to the Capitol with police escorts to ensure the safety of the participants.

SGA members led students in chants of “we are a nation that needs an education” and “fund our future.” The march also spurred supportive honks and waves from passing cars.

Metro student Gennai Sawvel, an art major, said she was marching because if tuition is raised as a result of less funding for higher education, she would not be able to get student loans to cover her tuition costs. Sawvel transferred from the University of Northern Colorado to Metro because the college was more affordable.

Metro is home to the second-largest undergraduate population in Colorado, but receives the least funding per student — an issue many students are concerned about, like Metro industrial design major Phillip Miller.

“Metro is already last in per capita funding. Higher education is always the first to be cut, and we can’t have that,” Miller said.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. John Morse, D-El Paso, addressed the students on the west steps of the Capitol. “We’ve figured out we’ve cut our taxes to the point we can’t even fund higher education,” Morse said. “How are we supposed to make sure that the next generation has every bit as much opportunity as the current generation?”

Higher education funding in Colorado is ranked 49th in the nation.

“A series of well-intentioned statutory and constitutional provisions to promote fiscal responsibility has produced a state of affairs where higher education funding is the absolute last of our priorities,” Dorey said.

Higher education is one of many components of the general fund. Healthcare, K-12 education and corrections are also encompassed in the fund. Areas such as K-12 education and corrections are constitutionally protected from severe budget cuts, making higher education a target when it comes time to cut the state budget.

“It is hard for us to make a case for higher education funding if we can’t get the constituents it matters most to show up and show that it’s important to them,” Bateman said in regard to the purpose of the march.

Metro theater adjunct professor Terry Burnsed marched along with the students of Auraria.
“All the schools in the nation need, like all human services activities, to not be the victims of this economic catastrophe,” Burnsed said. “Human services need not to be pitted against each other, but need to band together. The people advocating health care should be shaking hands with the people advocating for education.”

The general fund encompasses all human services expenditures, not just higher education.
“It’s important to make a statement,” Metro junior Kayla Kaufman said, adding that she doesn’t want tuition to go up. “(The march) really is for our future,” she said.

Metro students joined other Colorado students at the Capitol from Arapahoe Community College, Colorado State University, the Community College of Denver, Pikes Peak Community College, Fort Lewis College, UCD and UNC.

“This is a testament to the urgency of the issue that we are here lobbying for,” Dorey said. Senate Bill 228, if passed, will repeal the 6 percent spending cap. If the spending cap is repealed, legislators will have the freedom to decide where to spend funds and “restore fiscal sanity to Colorado,” said Jack Wiley, ASC director of legislative affairs and former Metro SGA president.

Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, thanked students for their support of Senate Bill 228. “Repealing Averschoug-Bird does not create one more dollar. Think about that,” Heath said. “It gives us flexibility where we are going to spend the money. Maybe one year we want to spend it all on roads and bridges. But maybe the next year we want to spend it all on higher education.”

Additional reporting by Andrew Fortier