Here in the United States, we’re pretty proud of our educational system and all the chances that people have to get ahead. But it can be quite expensive, of course, and we tend to complain a lot but do very little. One country is taking it to the next level as Chilean students gather en masse to demand that the government provide them with not cheaper, but free education.
This last Thursday, tens of thousands of students gathered in the capital to stage demonstrations, all of them demanding that they have the ability to get a decent higher education. This isn't the first time this has happened. Students in Chile have been asking for reform and protesting heavily since 2006. They don’t just get together and shout and scream and make demands either. These students turn the events into entertainment. They've done super hero-themed protests, mass “kiss-ins” and even zombie dancing in the name of education (check out that awesome video here).
Considering the current state of education in the country, these demonstrations are completely understandable. The system there has them paying more than even we here in the U.S. do, sometimes up to 75 percent of the costs. Due to an incredible lack of available grants, only the really smart students and the totally disenfranchised students even have a chance to get their schooling funded.
With a presidential election coming up in November, this issue is becoming even more heated and may very well determine the victor. Unless the problem is solved, it could become even more of an issue. As it stands, many cities are basically shut down because of all the students crowding the streets.
So what would the students do to solve the problem? Well, the obvious choice is to tax the rich more. The other popular solution is to remove the for-profit school system currently in place, instead giving control of education back to the government.
With prices rising here in the U.S., we might want to consider looking at our own mass protests or we’ll quickly find ourselves in a similar situation as Chile is now. Maybe we should just take a lesson from the way they do things. Even if nothing gets done, at least we’ll have some fun doing it, right?
2011 Student protests photo courtesy of Nicholas15 via Wikicommons
