photo by Haley Wisniewski
Students from local universities hold up signs to protest school budget cuts and student debt in Schenley Plaza on Nov. 19.

photo by Haley Wisniewski
Students from local universities hold up signs at a protest in Schenley Plaza on Nov. 19 to demand free education.

photo by Haley Wisniewski
Angel Le (left) and Anna Shaw (right) deliver information on education costs and student debt rates to the public.

Nearly 30 students from local universities, including Point Park, gathered at Schenley Plaza in Oakland on Nov. 19 to protest student debt.

This debt has exceeded over 1.2 trillion dollars nationally and has held down almost every student in America with thousands of dollars of  tuition loans.

Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition (PSSC) and Fight Back Pittsburgh participated in the hour-long rally.

“HEY-HEY HO-HO, STUDENT DEBT HAS GOT TO GO,” was one of many chants that echoed around the streets of Oakland as students and organizers protested.

With orange squares of fabric pinned to their clothing to symbolize the groups they support, the students began in Schenley Plaza yelling out chants in unison and raising signs for the public to both hear and see. 

A few members also spoke into megaphones, listing facts on worldwide tuition costs, the effects of student debt, etc., while others spread the word by handing out Student Debt Fact Sheets to those passing by.

Completing the hour-long protest, the group hit the streets of Oakland taking their signs and voices with them.

Under the International Student Movement (ISM) Global Week of Action slogan, “We Are Students-Not Customers,” protestors hoped to have their voices heard publically to lower or eliminate the cost of education and encourage other students to fight back with them.

“I feel like if nine percent of the money we spend every year on the military can cover everyone’s tuition, something’s wrong,” said Brett Stras, a sophomore student at the University of Pittsburgh and protestor.

Founded in 2008, the ISM began as a platform to communicate information on a global scale about the problems with public education and current economic systems. Through the ISM, protests and weeks of action on these matters have been coordinated and organized all around the world.  

“We really are just young people trying to get more involved in larger systems and institutions that we feel are overreaching or overbearing on our lives,” said Angel Le, a freshman student at Pitt and member of PSSC. “Most people are apolitical or don’t feel like they can get involved, but I think united we can provide some sort of voice.”

Starting alongside the Steelworkers Union, Fight Back Pittsburgh has grown into a union of working class people fighting for better pay, working conditions and increased employment rates.  They also take action in organized rallies like National Day of Action Against Police Brutality and have had members travel to Ferguson, Mo. and Metropolis, Il. to have their voices heard.

The PSSC, founded in January of this year, is an extension of Fight Back Pittsburgh consisting of students from Pittsburgh universities like Pitt, Point Park, Carlow and Carnegie Mellon that take those same actions and have similar motives in standing up for what they want.

The rally against incapacitating student debt brought together organizers of the PSSC and Fight Back Pittsburgh to pursue the principles of the ISM and fight against student debt and high tuition costs in America.

“Across the world in Spain and Greece there’s general strikes, and on the most expensive campus in the country [University of Pittsburgh], almost, people are quiet,” Stras said.