Ivory Tower Page #6
$184 billion in profits
over the next 10 years.
off the backs of our kids
who are trying to get an education.
I think this whole system stinks.
- What do we want?
- Education!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
- What do we want?
- Education!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
STUDENT 1:
We cannot continueto treat student loan debt
as an individual issue.
We must realize that as a society
we cannot have a generation in debt.
Once you hit $50,000
in debt, you need to pause
and take a look at the value
of the education you're getting.
You don't want to incur debt
that stops you from investing
in family formation, houses,
cars and children down the road.
The value of my education is priceless,
but the value of my education
is also not $140,000 in debt.
If I do ever have kids,
my private loans will be directly
passed to them even if I die.
It's just siphoning my dreams away,
and I feel bad talking about
any dreams that I have these days,
because there's all this talk that
Generation Y is so entitled and selfish
just for wanting the opportunities
that their parents had.
A lot of the
older generations
that criticize the millennials
grew up in a time
when you could go to a state university
and pay your way through
with summer jobs.
These millennial children
then got to college and realized,
"Oh, the money's not there to pay for me.
"I'm not going to be able to graduate
into a cushy job.
"And in fact, everything that I was told
about the way that the world works
"turns out not to be the case."
The student debt
crisis coupled with
the rise in tuition rates
over the past 30 years,
it's just a perfect
storm, it's a nightmare.
We are the students
We are the students
The mighty, mighty students
The mighty, mighty students
After 18 months of intense analysis,
the board of trustees voted last week
to charge tuition for all undergraduates
admitted to the Cooper Union
beginning with the class of 2014.
Right after the announcement
was made, I spoke to Jamshed.
Jamshed was, you know,
waving his hands, yelling, cutting us off.
Right outside of the school,
there was a lot of grieving.
People were angry.
You could kind of
feel this chaotic energy.
It kind of felt like at any moment
something could happen.
The moments
are the most exciting, also scary.
It was a really long planning session.
Obviously, they can do these things,
and they can overstep us.
They can do that, and they're doing it.
We didn't know what to do,
but people were like,
"We have to do something.
"Let's just go into the President's office.
"We're just going to do it."
We went in,
40 or so people, maybe more.
Lawrence? Lawrence?
- Door, people.
- Lawrence?
The secretary tried to say,
"Don't go in there,"
but, you know, there was 40 of us.
Jamshed wasn't there.
"We, the students of the Cooper Union
for the Advancement of Science and Art
"can no longer uphold or endorse
the direction our college has taken
"under the leadership
of Jamshed Bharucha.
"By voting no confidence today,
"join us in keeping
Cooper Union free to all."
First let me say, I'd
rather you just leave.
"Students and others
currently engaged in
"a sit-in of the President's suite
are trespassing.
"We're going to give a one-hour period
for anyone to leave.
"Anyone remaining on
the 7th floor after that one-hour period
"will be subject to disciplinary action."
At some point, they are going
to have to try and remove us.
I am an officer of the Cooper Union!
- The police?
- They're coming.
There are security guards
on the other side of this glass,
and there's two or three other men.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Free Cooper Union!
For many of us
it was the first time
being in the President's office.
We have this red light that we'd show
to say that we're occupying the space.
It's like being in a submarine.
It's like a shared experience,
and it's hard to sleep
because there's all this energy.
There is some physicality
of having to be there,
actually having to abstain
from your normal life,
and that's very powerful.
This space of the action
is also this great opportunity
to have no one
imposing structures on us.
And this is really
not asking permission and unapologetic,
because we're not sorry.
An entire school
does not have any confidence
in your ability to lead The Cooper Union.
If people have no confidence,
it means that no,
you're not going to be able
to regain that trust,
because there's none left.
You know,
it's a little simplistic to say that,
"You don't do this, and you don't do that."
I'm on the board.
I was firmly for no tuition.
The numbers are what they are.
However they got there,
that's where they are now.
No!
Can I finish?
You need to go. You're so rude.
I would like
the tone of this whole
discussion to cool down a little bit.
It's pretty clear, I think, to all of us
that this moment is different
than anything that's come before.
We haven't been to this point. All right?
And I think we need to let go
of some of the old dialogue,
because we're in a new place right now.
What we need to do, quite simply,
is realize this moment in the country,
with a trillion dollars in student debt,
with all the models of higher education
as a business, it's failing.
This is a moment for this school
to be the vision
of what education can be in this country,
just as it was the vision 150 years ago.
It was part of a radical capitalist vision.
It is rooted in a turn-of-the-century idea
about humanity, and it's an idea
that I think is incredibly contemporary
and incredibly urgent. All right?
To effectively lead us,
you need to realize the moment
you're in and the position you're in.
It is a historic position,
it is a historic moment.
This is a big step
that you came here to meet with us,
but we need a leap, not a gamble.
Universities are clearly
at a crisis point.
We've had runaway cost inflation.
This is not what either the kids
For yea rs,
we've been saying college
is a great investment no matter what.
And now people are starting to
ask really, really tough questions
about the role that colleges play
in American society,
the authority that they have,
their moral high ground.
Moody's is saying that
college might not be worth the cost.
The rating agency says the high cost
of college plus growing public doubts
about the value of a bachelor's degree
has caused it to revise down its outlook
on the entire higher education sector
to negative.
There's going to be a collapse.
One way or another,
there's going to be a crisis.
It gets to the point
where the price of a degree is so high
that people just don't want
to pay for it anymore.
This is not
what most colleges want to talk about.
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Ivory Tower" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/ivory_tower_11075>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In