Students Fear Pinch of CLT

Eighteen-year-old Lisa J. Pantanella is worried.

Pantanella, a sophomore, goes to the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. A legal studies major, she fears that the passage of Ballot Question No. 3, which would restore state tax rates to their 1988 levels, will cause increased tuition and a lessened quality of education.

"We're supposed to be the next generation. If they cut our education, then how are we supposed to run the world?" asked Pantanella, a native of Westford.

Pantanella's worries are echoed by thousands of public university students across the state. From the urban campus of UMass/Boston to the rural seclusion of North Adams State College, students are showing their concern by organizing, and registering to vote.

The students contend that the passage of Question 3--a sweeping tax rollback sponsored by the Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT)--would force the state to cut $25 million to $30 million from the budget of UMass/Amherst alone. The State Board of Regents says that it will have to cut the budget for public education 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the referendum's most vocal proponents charge that students, as well as the faculty and administration of public universities, are improperly using college facillities to fight the CLT petition, in apparent violation of state campaign laws.

"The level of activity in the colleges is far more frenzied [now] than it was [in 1980]," said CLT spokesperson Francis J. Faulkner.

According to Faulkner, officials of the University of Massachusetts at Boston held a training session on Question 3 last week at the university's Arlington Street campus. Faulkner also said that a professor at the University of Lowell "cancelled regularly scheduled classes...just to have a bull session on CLT."

The battle over CLT is rife on the airwaves. One hotbed of CLT support is Boston radio station WRKO. Every week the triumvirate of talkmaster Jerry Williams, Boston Herald columninst Howie Carr and CLT head Barbara Anderson--informally known as the three governors--gather to promote the passage of the question.

In an interview last week, Carr cited an anti-CLT speeches to the first year class by the presidents of Mount Wachusett Community College and Framingham State as instances of state university officials using their positions to influence votes. He also referred to a first-year orientation meeting at the University of Lowell in which students were told that the university would lose its accreditation if CLT passed.

Faulkner went one step farther, claiming that college administrators were "manipulating" students to vote against the question.

But a number of students, many of whom work all summer long and part-time during the school year to pay for tuition expressed outrage last week at the suggestion that they were being manipulated by college adminstrators and professors. Several categorically denied the that they were using state funds or state buildings for their campaigning.

One student, who could not give her name, called the allegations "ridiculous."

"It spells doomsday for UMass," she said. "This is reality. I know I'm going to have a big problem if the tuition goes up by $1000. A lot of people I know won't come back."

Matthew J. McDonald and Rachel D. Kleinberg contributed to the reporting of this story.