As the seventh most popular listened-to show in the country, The Mike Medved Show invited two members of Pierce College’s Associated Students Organization (ASO) to speak on today’s segment.
Daniel Axelrod, ASO president, and Jonathan Fackler, ASO senator, participated in the on-air debate regarding the issue of tuition hikes in community colleges.
Medved, a conservative, focused on the recent ‘Enough is Enough’ rally.
The segment had two callers. The first caller was a public school teacher and father of four. He argued that he takes out loans to pay for his children and doesn’t complain.
Fackler countered his argument with asking him if he thought it was reasonable that he [Fackler] has to spend the rest of his life paying off the loans that he owes.
The second caller, a military man, questioned why he should be paying taxes for community college students’ education.
“Education benefits the country,” said Fackler, who was in charge of earning the permits from the LAPD to protest last week. “It benefits everybody. An educated society means more progress and less crime.”
According to Fackler, if tuition keeps going up, students will be left with nothing. He said that it is predicted that if the state raises tuition, more than 6,000 students will not be able to go to Pierce.
“Education should be something that’s affordable,” Fackler said.
Medved agreed that education is important, but that it needs to be cut in order to help alleviate California’s ballooning budget.
Still, Fackler persisted, “We will continue to protest.”
Axelrod and Fackler said they expected the debate to be heated and tried to keep things calm, and maintained a professional manner.
“Our government shouldn’t be spending money on war, but on education,” said Fackler. “We’re also waging a war on education. We’re helping other people with their problems when we can’t even help ourselves.”
