Katherine McLaughlin

Kat is a student at the University of California Berkeley and is a Campaign Intern at Evolve.

Why is education important to you?

Moving to California for university completely altered my perception of education. I had yet to recognize what education could be, merely what the implications of poor funding were back home. Education has the ability to foster critically conscious students and community members, who not only are conscious of intersecting oppressions in the world but also feel they have the power to change them. When prioritized, education can empower students of all backgrounds and restore some political power to those most marginalized by systems of oppression. K-12 education should be a societal right and priority, not an afterthought.

How has California's lack of education funding negatively impacted you?

As a product of the Arizona public education system, one of the few states continually ranked lower than California, my eyes were opened at an early age to the detrimental impact of neglecting education. My classrooms were over run, teacher turn over high, and counselor support for out of state ambitions low. However, at Berkeley, I watched many of these same problems replicated at a greater, more individually expensive scale, in everything from the housing crisis to caps placed on majors and classes. Berkeley's lack of funding inevitably harms those at intersecting points of oppression the most, thus turning its back on the very people liberal education claims to protect and uplift.

How has the increasing cost of college impacted you?

Out of state higher education was encouraged by my parents from a young age to expand my experiences and worldview. However, actually transforming this idealistic dream into a reality with financial consequences has grown more difficult for my family every year. I am fortunate enough to have the financial support to access California's higher education system, but I know many of my qualified peers from home simply did not have the ability to. If I chose to continue my education after undergraduate, I must make peace with the inevitable financial hardship education will place on life. Students should not have to bear the burden of enormous debt coming out of higher education.