Oops.

October 21, 2008 in Finances, Media, Politics, Tuition and Fees | by | Leave a comment

US Representative Christopher Smith, a fourteen-term New Jersey Republican, has tuition troubles.

His daughter attends the University of Virginia, and the family is saving $20,000 a year by claiming her as a VA resident — UVA’s out-of-state tuition is $14,500 a semester.

Smith’s opponent, Joshua Zeitz, was quick to jump on the revelation, saying through a spokesperson that Rep. Smith’s decision to seek in-state tuition shows “that after 28 years in Washington, he has a sense of entitlement, he thinks he’s entitled to things average folks aren’t entitled to and he ends up spending all of his life in Herndon, Va.”

Oops.

On Words

October 19, 2008 in Quotes | by | Leave a comment

“Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.”

–John Maynard Keynes

Minnesota State College Student Association

October 18, 2008 in Student Government, Student Power | by | 4 comments

I’m in Minneapolis right now, participating in the fall leadership conference of the Minnesota State College Student Association. The MSCSA graciously invited me out to conduct a workshop, give an address, and take some questions, and they’ve been wonderful hosts. I’ll be hanging out here until tomorrow, seeing some more of the conference and continuing the conversation informally.

Thanks to everyone in MSCSA for giving me such a warm, thoughtful welcome!

Last night…

October 16, 2008 in Access, Finances, Financial Aid, Politics, Quotes, Students, Tuition and Fees | by | Leave a comment

So last night, in the final question of the final debate, the presidential candidates finally got around to discussing education. A full debate transcript is available here, and I’ve cut-and-pasted the higher education portions of their answers behind the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Right to Vote.

October 15, 2008 in Civil Liberties, History, Politics, Student Power, Students, Voting Rights | by | Leave a comment

I’m going to be giving a keynote address at the fall conference of the Minnesota State College Student Association this weekend, and one of the things I’ll be talking about is the effect of voting rights on the history of American student activism.

Until the passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971, the voting age in the US was 21, which means that throughout the huge waves of campus activism of the 1930s and 1960s, the vast majority of American college students were denied the vote on the basis of their age.

The effect of this disfranchisement on the course of student activism has received little attention in most histories of American student protest, and the effect of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment on the course of later activism still less. It’s a topic I devote a bit of attention to in my dissertation, and one I’m looking forward to discussing with the folks in Minneapolis.

About This Blog

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StudentActivism.net is the work of Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of American student organizing.

To contact Angus, click here. For more about him, check out AngusJohnston.com.