Between spiked tuition rates and new tax bills, changing economic issues impact college students on a daily basis. Syracuse University students are no exception.

The second lecture in the REAL Talks series will take place Friday on the topic of economic injustice, covering contemporary issues that affect the student body. Moderator Susan Thomas and guest Dana Cloud plan to cover student debt, tuition hikes, the GOP tax bill and the overall neoliberalization of higher education.

Thomas looks to foster an open discussion for students to share personal experiences and learn from one another.

“We’re experimenting with a different kind of format. Not quite a lecture or a panel, we want students to kind of be more involved in the exchange we have,” said Thomas, an assistant professor in the School of Education.

Americans owe over $1.48 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among 44 million borrowers, according to studentloanhero.com.

“Students leave college with massive amounts of debt, they enter a job market that isn’t so great,” Thomas said. “And then the tuition hikes and taking out things like student loans, we’ve ended up with a pretty severe crisis.”

The projected total cost of attendance for new undergraduate SU students in the 2018-19 academic year is $70,637 — a 7.9 percent increase from the current academic year — but the issue extends beyond University Hill. Tuition hikes have become the norm nationally and are an issue that leads to a broader economic situation, Thomas said.

She added that it’s important to think through economic injustices and why it’s problematic to think of students as economic subjects in the higher education sphere.

“Can we imagine something different and if so, could the issues around questions of economic justice be something we create a struggle about and can we bring people together for?” she asked.

To help foster the discussion, longtime socialist activist and SU professor Cloud will bring her experiences from similar involvement in political meetings and on-campus discussions.

“I’m hoping that a lot of students will come to hear critical perspectives on society and also ask a lot of questions, so I think I’m looking forward to knowing what’s on their minds,” Cloud, a communications and rhetorical studies professor, said.

Nationally, the recent GOP tax plan has caused unrest among students. A provision in the Republican House of Representatives’ tax plan originally proposed taxing graduate students’ tuition waivers as income. Amid student protests at dozens of universities, tuition waivers will remain tax-free in the final version of the GOP bill.

Higher education today has become about the bottom line, meshing neoliberalism with collegiate-level schooling, Thomas said. She added that, as an ideology, neoliberalism ends up governing every part of life in terms of future thinking and possibilities when it comes to university life.

“Students have a lot of economic anxiety right now, and so addressing what might be the root causes of that anxiety and sense of precarity will be helpful,” Cloud said.

The second REAL Talks event is set to focus on these issues from a student perspective. Thomas said she wants students to talk to each other and share common issues that impact the community as a whole.

Said Thomas: “I hope it can serve as a safe space to have a very frank conversation about what’s going on and what it means not individually, but what it means collectively.”

The event will take place Friday from 12:30-2 p.m. in room 304 of the Tolley Humanities Building.

Published on February 28, 2018 at 10:00 pm

Contact Myelle: malansat@syr.edu