It Is Easier To Be A Broke Student in Berlin Than It Is In California
Corporate Profit and Student Hunger
I’ve been a student at a public university for half a year now and I have to say: it is easier to be broke and a student in Berlin than it is in California. As you might know, food becomes a big issue when your wallet is empty and your bank account isn’t hiding promising numbers, either. So, what a university has to offer for food choices, is crucial for student health, life, and well-being.
So, where’s the difference between Berlin and Riverside, CA? Let me start with a little comparison of the experiences I’ve had so far.
At the ‘HU Mensa’ in Berlin, which is basically a cafeteria, you can get yourself a salad or soup for around 60 ct, while the more fancy meals cost between 3,00 € and 6,00 €. You can choose your sides — potatoes, rice, pasta, green beans, some mashed up veggies, a.s.o.- and create your own plate. Since I lived nearby, I went there pretty often. Usually my meals were somewhere between 1,50 € — or 3 € when I was feeling extra generous to myself. The food is probably not all organic, fairtrade or particularly local. It doesn’t always taste great, and you have to know what won’t get you bloated. BUT it is affordable!
When I’m walking around UCR campus on a lunchbreak, the cheapest ‘food’ I can get are fries fro 1,89. A combo would add 5 $ to that. My choice is between fast food franchises like Habaneros, Panda Express, Panda Sushi, La Fiamma, Starbucks, Coffee Bean, and the Barn. Sandwiches in the student shop start at 4 bucks, and one banana or apple cost more than a pound of the same in the supermarket. When I’m hungry I think it over multiple times whether I should just get something right there or if I should just go home. When I do decide to stay and buy a meal, I usually feel terrible after. Partly, because I spent so much money on one meal, but also because the food does not feel great for my body.
Food accessibility is only one part of a way bigger problem, that has to do with the privatization of education, corporate influence, and in the end neoliberalism. Education is not seen a as a basic right, but — as so many other things in the United States — as a commodity. You have to pay for it.
As stated before, the meals on UCR’s campus are provided by corporate franchises. Some of them are even more expensive precisely because they are on University grounds.
At UCR, 62 % of the students are food insecure — that’s more than half of the people you see walking around campus.
Students take out loans, work parttime-jobs, sleep in their car in order to pay tuition — which is not only absurdly high, but also contradicts any approach to make education accessible — and all kinds of fees besides living expenses, for a degree that is promising a better life.
But how can life be better after graduation when as a young 20-something you’ve already accumulated so many debts that you will have to work them off your whole life?
Universities in Germany are mostly funded by the government and the tax-payers. While some research facilities might receive money from very problematic sources (for example when it comes to research for military purposes), generally speaking the idea remains that education should be accessible to the public and that it is therefore the states responsibility. Consequently, the state of Berlin is also funding the so-called Studentenwerk, which is responsible for (limited) accomodation, and provides the food on campus. Of course it is not the greatest system there is. Many students have to work besides going to class, as well, and take on student loans. But at least, students are not punished with an extremely high tuition, and they are not seen as consumers in the way that they are in the United States.
So, a lot has to happen in order to reclaim education as a right and not as a commodity again, and to ensure health and a good life quality for students, instead of punishing them for the desire to learn (or aquiring a degree). The San Francisco City College for example takes a step in the direction of making education accessable, by freeing San Francisco residents from college tuition. Obviously, that excludes a lot of people and future students, but it builds a base for other Universities to follow in SFCCs steps or even expand the idea to no tuition fees at all.
Another example how to tackle the highly precarious financial situation of students is to start to talk about food insecurity. Students at UCR under the campaign of Sustaion Our Students (SOS) or Feed The People demand that the administration takes on the responsibility to ensure food security for their students, part of the critique being the heavy influence of corporations on campus and the lack of support for structures like a pantries, community gardens, or even a community kitchen.
The system in Germany surely isn’t perfect, but in order to make the system in the United States better, we have to rethink education in ways that don’t relate to neoliberal logic. And that also means that students have to be well fed so that they can raise their voice and contribute to a system that recognizes them as subjects, and not as consumers.
