The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education works in support of and in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street (OWS). We are and we educate the 99%.

Just as OWS is decrying the growing, vast gap between the mega-rich and the public, the CFHE decries the growing gap between college opportunities enjoyed by the wealthiest versus the rest of us. College should not be rationed by income, ethnicity, or immigrant status. All who can benefit have a right to affordable, quality higher education.

Just as OWS is condemning the failure of the mega-rich and large corporations to pay their share of taxes, the CFHE calls on states to stop cutting taxes on corporations and the richest few even as they cut pre-K-12 education and shift the burden of funding higher education to students, whose crushing debt is foreclosing their future and our economy.

Just as OWS is denouncing the bail out of Wall Street and its executives who tanked the global economy while selling out the people and jobs on Main Street, USA, the CFHE calls on federal, state, and municipal governments to invest less in University Avenue’s corporate-like executives and resort-like leisure facilities and more in the human capacity of College Street, in expanding and ensuring a fair and living wage and benefits for the faculties, professionals, and staff who serve students and society.

Just as OWS is standing for freedom of assembly and free speech in public spaces, the CFHE is working to defend and expand the public space for social critique and democratic debate in not-for-profit higher education settings that are being privatized.

If the country is to rebuild, strengthen, and expand the working and middle classes, if we are to make the American Dream an achievable aspiration for the vast majority once again, we must advance the goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We must insist on education as a right for all who can benefit. We must support the dignity of working people, including public sector and unionized employees. And we must demand that the mega-rich and large corporations contribute their fair share in taxes.

The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education calls on our colleagues across the country, in and outside of the academy to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.