Do more: Student leaders should use numbers to lobby the GA

Our student leaders need to do more about budget cuts.

They need to organize a joint student lobbying effort.

Earlier in the decade students led protests against cuts to the UNC system. This year the system and the University are facing severe cuts and student leaders haven't organized so much as a single protest.

Maybe it's because we all know the state has to cut funds somewhere.

Maybe it's because our leaders don't think a protest would be effective.

But students have been noticeably absent from this year's budget process.

That's not to say that student leaders like Greg Doucette president of the UNC-system Association of Student Governments or Student Body President Jasmin Jones haven't been doing anything. But they've not organized students into an effective lobbying group.

Doucette recently said he's been trying to get information to legislators without being melodramatic because that turns off legislators.

But being nice isn't how you win in politics. You have to show the force of numbers. College students are voters. Our voice counts just as much as all the other groups lobbying for funds in Raleigh.

Doucette also said he's working on coordinating efforts with student leaders and the UNC general administration.

That's not good enough. Student leaders alone won't be as effective as student protests and the general administration doesn't always look out for the interests of students.

It might be too late this time to get a protest organized. But if budget negotiations are still going on in the fall our student leaders have an obligation to both the UNC-system student body and the University student body to organize a massive lobbying effort against the budget cuts to the UNC system.

Such efforts have worked before. They could work again.