By Adrienne Nettles
Montgomery Advertiser

University of West Alabama student Imari Horten said that she and her brother are the first in their family to graduate from high school.

Neither of her parents finished high school, said Horten while standing in front of the Alabama State House on Thursday.

"My mom dropped out in the ninth grade," she said.

Now, Horten who is majoring in nursing at UWA, has become the first in her family to attend college -- with the help of work-study, student loans and a scholarship.

"But it still isn't enough to pay for tuition," Horten said. "Tuition keeps rising."

Her plight brought her to the State House on Thursday for 2010 Higher Ed Day, where she joined other college students from across Alabama in demanding fair funding for higher education. The theme for this year's Higher Ed Day was "Leave Your Mark."

"Education is very important to me," Horten said. "Seeing my parents' struggles, I want a better life for me and my children when I have them. Higher education should be funded better."

More than 2,000 college students from across the state were estimated to have participated in Thursday's event. They came to demand fair funding for higher education and for Alabama's Pre-Paid Affordable College Tuition program, according to the Higher Education Partnership, a state advocacy group for public universities.

Students at Thursday's rally routinely chanted "fair funding" and "save the PACT -- just not on our back."

"We're here to get what we want when we want it," Bryant Whaley, student government president at Jacksonville State University, told the chanting crowd at one point. "We're here because enough is enough. We want fairness."

Sen. Hank Sanders, chair of Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee, told students he always has been a champion of better funding for higher education.

"Your presence says this is important to you," Sanders told a rallying crowd of college students and educators Thursday.

"Education has been a bridge out of poverty for me," Sanders added, telling students he grew up in a three-room house with his parents and eight other siblings. "It can be a bridge for you. I truly wish we could give (much more) money to higher education."

"The alternative is to raise taxes," he told students. "I'd be willing to do it and you would be willing to do it, but not everyone is willing to. I will keep in mind how important higher education is ... and do all we can to keep higher education going."

Thursday's rally brought an end to a day of festivities that began with a parade of college students, bands and officials from 13 public universities in the state marching from near Cramton Bowl to the Alabama State House where Thursday's rally took place.

Riley, Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom and a host of other legislators also gave speeches at Thursday's rally.

As legislators consider funding for higher education this legislative session, equity will be on their mind, said state Rep. Richard Lindsey, D-Centre, and chair of the Education Finance and Appropriations Committee.

"It's not going to be an easy process, but we're doing all we can," he said.

Gordon Stone, executive director of the Higher Education Partnership, kept Thursday's crowd pumped with his message calling for equity in education and for funding the PACT program.

Stone's group wants "to see the challenges of the (PACT) program resolved" but not through House and Senate bills that would address the program's funding problems by forcing colleges to make up the difference by limiting the tuition students in the program pay.

"I believe we have campuses full of people who believe they can change the world," Stone said. "One way to change the world is to keep on fighting for fair funding."

"We need it now," one crowd-goer yelled back.

House Speaker Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, then addressed Thursday's crowd with a simple message: "We need to invest in education as if our future depends on it," he said.

Stone added, "All our future depends on it."

More info:

Original article here...

Areas of Focus:

User Comments