Tent State is about reclaiming higher education for students. We're dedicated to finding ways to fight inequalities in admissions, furthering student struggles, and examining the role of the student in society.

The project originated with students at Rutgers University in 2003. Check out Tent State Rutgers for more information about Tent States around the country. From Rutgers:

Tent State University is a national movement (first started at Rutgers in 2003) that believes education is a right, not a privilege. We reject the myth of a “budget crisis,” which is used as an excuse for funding cuts year after year. We believe the US suffers from a crisis of values and leadership, embodied in state and national spending priorities that favor war and corporate greed over social necessities such as education. We create Tent State University as a grassroots, democratic, alternative institution of learning to challenge the undemocratic decision-making process that dominates our universities and our society. We strive for free, quality public higher education for all and we hold that restricted access to education is a threat to democracy. We oppose tuition, funding cuts and the privatization of universities that disproportionately impact working and middle class families, immigrants, women, and people of color. We also hold that wars of aggression are incompatible with democracy or education and we oppose the tragic, wasteful and illegal US occupation of Iraq. In building Tent State, we provide a space where students, faculty, staff, and community members come together to practice democracy both as a means and as a goal in itself. At Tent State, we work together and we decide together, because democracy is about more than voting once a year. The Tent State movement gathers the resources for all participants to expand democracy at the university and beyond and to begin building a new world within the old.

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