Students demand free college education;
march at over 120 locations nationwide 

ImagenStudents at UC Santa Cruz in California joined students at college campuses across the country for a "Million Student March.
By Katherine Russell

The latest wave in a rising consensus seeking free college tuition and other debt-free education demands crashed across the United States with the Million Student March.

On November 12, hundreds of thousands of students from colleges and universities nationwide walked out of their classrooms and onto the streets demanding tuition-free college education, cancellation of student debt, and a $15 minimum wage for campus employees.

“The United States is the richest country in the world, yet students have to take on crippling debt in order to get a college education,”the marchers state on their web- site.

With a roster of supporters that includes Noam Chomsky, Thomas Hartman and Jill Stein, and organizations as varied as National Nurses United and the Energy Action Coalition—as well as many Bernie Sanders campus support groups—the marchers made good on the adage of strength in numbers.

Elan Axelbank and Keely Mullen, students from Northeastern University in Boston, were galvanized to create the march by a comment made by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. In a June inter- view with Katie Couric, Bernie stated, “If a million young people march on Washington [and tell] the Republican leadership, ‘we know what’s going on, and you better vote to deal with student debt ... you better vote to make colleges free,’ that’s when it will happen.”

Inspired, the two set up a Facebook page and a website, encouraging a wide coalition of students to participate in the protest day on their own campuses, and were overwhelmed by the response—so much so that they had to create an organizing committee to parse out their demands and plan the march logistics.

“The three demands were designed to bring as many people into this movement as possible and meet the needs of future students and past students,” Elan said in an 
interview with The Washington Post. “There are people who are 30 years old, with $40,000 in student debt, and because of that they haven’t been able to buy a car or a home. It’s difficult to settle down if you’re still paying off that debt.” 

​“Education is a right, not just for the rich and white,” demonstrators chanted at Hunter College in New York City, Newsweek reported. As the marchers note on their site, the average college student in 2015 graduates with $35,000 in debt. It’s estimated that roughly 70 percent of students borrow to pay for college, with no end in sight to soaring costs.

The Million Student March is the latest event in a broader movement to support free public college and address the student debt crisis. There’s America’s College Promise: Obama’s proposal to allow new college students to attend two years of college or technical school for free  There’s a national student-debt strike slated for October 2016, proposed by college professor Richard Robbins, in his recently published book, Debt as Power, comparing a debt strike to a labor strike, an act of civil disobedience, where the current corrupt financial system can “no longer ignore the 99 percent.”
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The Million Student Marchers may also organize another wave of protests in the near future. “We don’t have illusions that a big national day of action will win us these demands,” Elan pointed out. “It’s a necessary first step to build a base, to build mo- mentum. We’re thinking about having a second day of action in the spring.” 
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Million Student March
Posted December 2015
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