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Athena Salman Interview

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Question No. 1. The public service/ policy individual I interviewed is Athena Salman. Athena Salman is the Democratic nominee for State House of Representatives in Legislative District 26. She recently won the Arizona Primary back in August, beating incumbent Celeste Plumlee. Now heading towards the general election, alongside Isela Blanc, she will be facing Republican nominee Steven Adkins, and Green Party candidate Cara Trujillo. In the near future, a trio of debates between the candidates between now and election day. Athena is very proud of the fact she is a clean elections candidate, meaning she does not take any type of donation from anyone that live outside of her district. This is the first time of Athena running for AZ Representative …show more content…

She grew up in public schools and graduated from Arizona State University. She earned her degrees in both economics and political science. Every year since Athena has been around in higher education, the Arizona legislature has continued to cut spending on education, specifically higher education. This has made a huge impact on me and other peers that are low-income and first generation. Back when Athena was at Arizona State, her tuition cost was in total $4,700 for the whole academic year. When I first heard this, I was stunned by the low amount, but what is more shocking to me is that this was only five years ago in 2011. I can only imagine what the feeling of tuition being that much cheaper for an academic year. Currently, tuition is almost $6,000 just for a single semester without including fees. In five short years, just like that, the cost of tuition has nearly tripled. Sadly, the cost of tuition is expected to increase with no end in sight to lower down the cost anytime soon. The cut to education funding led Athena to take up community organizing opportunities, public policy, and lobbying elected officials. Athena made it her mission to inform elected officials the true impact of decreasing funding for education and demonstrating the importance of higher education. Along with that, Athena spent some time in the nonprofit sector to bring unity within underrepresented communities. Eventually, she felt the best way to create everlasting change is to run for office herself. So far, the move of running for office has felt right for

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