When local college students march around shouting, "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out"—as students from the University of Washington recently did during a protest near campus—they're pretty much stating a fact.
Almost all of these students were in high school as the financial crisis that caused the Great Recession was building. They weren't buying property they couldn't afford, trading in risky stocks, or creating newfangled financial derivatives. They were simply doing what they'd been told to do: Study hard enough to get into college, because a college degree is a minimum requirement for a good job these days, and don't worry too much about whether your family can afford college because the state can help you out if need be.
Then came the financial crisis. The banks that helped create it got bailed out, and meanwhile, students in Washington State literally did get sold out as lawmakers slashed UW funding over the last three years, from $400 million to $200 million. At the same time, tuition rates at UW shot up 55 percent in the last two years.
State senator Ed Murray, who represents the University District and will be in the thick of education funding issues, says the only thing surprising about the current upsurge in student organizing and protests is the timing, three years after the financial crisis began.
"It's amazing that it's taken this long to happen," Murray says.
Part of their motivation stems from the separate (but thematically connected) Occupy movement, and part of it is Governor Chris Gregoire's recent proposal to cut $160 million more from higher-education funding over the next biennium to help deal with the state's latest shortfall, which totals about $2 billion.
UW student leaders rolled out a specific plan on November 3. It calls for doing away with about $80 million in annual tax exemptions for large tech firms that don't need them. This would save about $160 million over the next biennium—enough to prevent the proposed higher-ed cuts. (Alternatively, they announced on November 29, they would support a temporary sales-tax increase proposed by Gregoire to "buy back" higher-ed funding.)
"Everywhere we're going, people are excited by the fact that there's a real, tangible plan on the table to be discussed," said Andrew Lewis, government relations director for the Associated Students of the University of Washington.
Murray, however, sees a difficult battle ahead, even though he supports the students' aims. "I absolutely agree [with the students]," Murray says. "We can't continue to do this. We are destroying our higher-education system... They need to push all of us. And those students whose parents live outside of Seattle—those are the ones who really need to work legislators. Because outside of Seattle is where we need the votes." 
