Police attack students protesting tuition hikes in California

Hundreds of college students in the US state of California protesting tuition hikes clashed violently with campus police on Thursday, leading to two arrests.

Around 250 people assembled Thursday at the City College of San Francisco to call for the resignation of special trustee Robert Agrella, who was appointed in July 2013 by California Community Colleges Board of Governors.

Demonstrators say that Agrella has proposed a new tuition policy that discriminates against undocumented and poor students.

Itzel Calvo, an ethnic studies student, said she was unable to register this semester because she is an undocumented immigrant who would have to pay out-of-state fees totaling about $3,000 to sign up for classes.

The protest was initially peaceful but escalated into violent clashes after police officers began attacking the students with batons and pepper spray.

Anya Komisaryk, 21, a Broadcast Journalism major at San Francisco State University, said the officer’s actions escalated the clash.

“I think the violence really got instigated by this one officer who physically attacked students,” Komisaryk said. “He is the core reason that this took a violent turn.”

“That was the height of escalation,” she said. “When he hit demonstrators, it just started getting worse and worse.”

According to a report released in December, the average US college graduate obtained a degree in 2012 with $29,400 in student debt, up from $18,750 less than a decade before in 2004.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, outstanding student loan debt in the United States lies between $902 billion and $1 trillion with around $864 billion in Federal student loan debt.