It’s your turn to fight for your university

Back then, though, I had no idea that I’d end up at those meetings myself — not just as a student, but as your ASUC external affairs vice president and UC Student Association president.

Almost six years ago, the UC system was at a tipping point.

By 2014, the economy had recovered from the Great Recession — but California’s commitment to higher education had not. Faced with rising enrollment and chronic underfunding, that fall, UC President Janet Napolitano proposed five years of 5% tuition hikes on UC students. Student organizing eventually helped force then-Gov. Jerry Brown to negotiate with the UC system, resulting in a budget deal that kept tuition flat until 2017.

I remember this episode well because, coincidentally, 16-year-old me wrote about it for my high school student newspaper. In a December 2014 Oak Park High School Talon article titled “UC votes to hike tuition,” I detailed the tuition proposal, the budget spat, controversial executive pay raises and student protests at UC Board of Regents meetings — protests that my predecessors and soon-to-be mentors were leading.

Back then, though, I had no idea that I’d end up at those meetings myself — not just as a student, but as your ASUC external affairs vice president and UC Student Association president.

I often say fighting for students is how I found my voice. I’m not kidding. As a shy and unconfident freshman, I was inspired by talented student leaders — Rigel Robinson, Courtney Brousseau, zaynab abdulqadir-morris, Nuha Khalfay and Juniperangelica Cordova, to name a few — but I didn’t think I could handle the spotlight like they did. When Rigel was elected ASUC external affairs vice president and asked me to be his “Fund the UC” campaign manager in summer 2017, I told him I wasn’t sufficiently qualified and rejected the offer. I changed my mind a few weeks later, but I was still terrified that I wouldn’t measure up.

A couple months later, the UC system proposed yet another tuition increase. I was tasked with organizing the protest at the regents meeting where the vote was to take place. I was so scared — of the attention, the responsibility, the prospect of failure — that my voice shook as I gave public comment before the regents. When I left the meeting later that morning, I had no idea if what we did was going to work.

Somehow, it did. Thanks to student organizing, the proposal didn’t even go to a vote. That moment stunned me — and it motivated me to keep going.

For our win to stick, we needed the state to provide the UC system with a bigger budget. So, that spring, I dedicated myself to state advocacy. I lobbied legislators and their staffs, organized dozens of students to speak at budget hearings and made sure that reporters covered our efforts. In what is the most ridiculous advocacy stunt I’ve ever participated in, a few of us delivered Chipotle burrito bowls to legislators’ offices after Brown said the UC and CSU systems should be more like the fast food chain.

It worked. Again. The 2018 state budget provided hundreds of millions of additional dollars to the UC system — leading to the first tuition decrease in two decades. Once again, I was both stunned and motivated. “After we fought so hard to increase state funding and stop a tuition hike, this month’s tuition rollback is icing on the cake,” I told the Los Angeles Times.

The rest, as they say, was history. I was so motivated by our victories that I stayed in the ASUC and joined the UC Student Association Board of Directors. I took on everything that came my way, from fighting off more tuition hikes to demanding financial aid reform at a press conference, to meeting with Gov. Gavin Newsom. By 2019, I had enough confidence to run for leadership positions. In spring 2019, I was elected ASUC external affairs vice president, and that summer, I was elected UC Student Association president.

I want to be clear: I doubted myself every step of the way. I still doubt myself, all the time. I am not perfect and have made quite a few mistakes. But I’ve seen enough victories over the years to know that carrying on is worth it.

As I leave the ASUC and prepare to leave the UC Student Association in August, I can’t help but be reminded of those tuition protests from six years ago. The next few months and years are going to be a challenging time for UC students. The UC system’s losses from the COVID-19 pandemic in March alone total $558 million, and the state just announced that it will be facing its biggest budget deficit ever. In short, we’re at another tipping point, and it’s going to be a big one.

There’s a part of me that feels guilty about moving on during such a difficult time. But there’s another, more hopeful part of me that remembers how many talented, dedicated students there are just around the corner — students who will come to campuses like ours, get inspired by student advocacy and find their self-confidence in this work, just like generations of us did before. I know it’s possible because that’s my story.

For those of you who’ll be back next year, and for those of you who are joining our campus community this fall: This is your university. Now it’s your turn to fight for it.

Varsha Sarveshwar was the 2019-20 ASUC external affairs vice president and UC Student Association president. She is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science and minors in history and in public policy.