CCSF Students, Staff Take Stand For Higher Education
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - City College of San Francisco was among the many campuses to participate in a protest Sunday outside CCSF to show support for higher education. About 50 students, faculty members, and other supporters of community colleges, lined up along Ocean Avenue to participate in the racous demonstration.
53 of the state's 112 community colleges were involved in a reprisal of the 80s-era Hands Across America, in an event to highlight how fewer students are able to afford an education, even at the state's community colleges.
KCBS' Chris Filippi Reports:
CCSF Student Council President Elizabeth Weinberg said community college students are under more pressure than ever before.
"We have students that want to transfer into schools that can't and students coming back to community college from transfer schools and classes are shrinking," said Weinberg. About 90 percent of full-time students at the community colleges need some form of financial aide.
Things aren't much better from the faculty's perspective, either. Physics professor Diana Markub said staff cuts are having a big impact and that the faculty is the core.
"The payroll department is down from I think three people from 20," said Diana.
The event's organizers are also promoting a text to give campaign sponsored by AT&T. If you text the word "hands" to 27722 a $10 donation is made to the California Community College Scholarship Endowment.
Supporters of this plan hoped it would be one of the largest philanthropic events ever for higher education. The original Hands Across America event in 1986 had an estimated 6.5 million people join hands across the country to raise money to combat hunger and homelessness.
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