This kind of dialogue — if it can even be called that — is a relatively recent development in the history of student protests. Today’s student protesters may have identified the problem correctly, but their protests are generally ineffective. This is because, unlike their predecessors, today’s student protesters tend not to have a plan. Because of this, they resort to pointing fingers, which is exactly what happened at last week’s town hall.

The March 1, 2012 “Day of Action” was loosely modeled on the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in mid-September 2011. Though the Occupy movement was initially a fairly incoherent populist movement, it developed into a call for limitations on the influence that corporations could have on lawmakers. Its newest leaders are fighting for an anti-corporate amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Slowly but surely, they are meeting far more success than their predecessors, who didn’t really have a plan. The old leaders simply vented their frustrations about corporate misdeeds.

As with the Occupy movement, last year’s March 1 protests showed that enthusiasm — while necessary — isn’t enough for a protest to be successful. Nearly 8,000 UC students participated in the “Day of Action” protests, more than at any other university system in the country. However, in spite of a stellar turnout, the student protesters didn’t ask for any of the changes they could have.

The protesters could have called for a change in the composition of the UC Board of Regents. Currently, 15 of the 19 members of the Board of Regents are former CEOs or lawyers, a higher proportion than it has ever been. The protesters might have called for a revocation of SB-1022, a 2008 bill that increased prison spending by over 200 percent. They could have enlisted a lawyer and drafted a bill that postponed corrections reform, and used the money to fund the University of California, instead.

With 8,000 students among them, they could have suggested almost anything, but they didn’t. Instead, they chanted that they as students refused to “pay for the mess that the one percent made.” It’s an attitude toward activism that could be seen clearly in last week’s town hall meeting. Complaining about Khosla’s salary is a lot like complaining about corporate wrongdoing: totally understandable, but unlikely to bring about real change.

UC students have suffered an average of $7,000 in tuition hikes in the past five years. And although that can be unbearable, it’s not as compact — or tangible — as the problems tackled by student protesters in the past.

Take the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1970s. The protesters’ goal was simple and concrete: get an anti-war president to replace Lyndon B. Johnson in the upcoming election. The image of army-age students setting themselves on fire and chaining themselves to bulldozers swayed public opinion. Because he was seeking re-election, there was a real push on Johnson to slow down troop deployment.

In spite of Johnson’s popular domestic policies, he wasn’t re-elected. Instead, Richard Nixon — whose social policies were actually less popular — was elected president, largely because he made numerous campaign promises to end the war. The movement had a shot because unlike “Day of Action” — unlike the sporadic outbursts of anger about Khosla’s salary — it had a specific, achievable, meaningful demand.

Perhaps an even better example of the efficacy of specific demands is the Greensboro sit-in movement of the 1960s, part of the early struggle for Civil Rights. The students involved understood that there was nothing necessary or universal about discriminatory seating arrangements in restaurants, buses and trains. From the beginning, their goal was to pass federal anti-discrimination legislation: nothing more, and nothing less.

When it comes to tuition hikes, a compact solution doesn’t exist. In addition, public opinion is harder to sway when they’re the ones footing the bill. And misinformation is rampant.

To clear things up — Khosla is being paid $411,000 per year. Cutting his salary to zero would reduce student tuition by less than $10 per UCSD student per year. If they are to bring about significant change, student protesters need to take a look back — and unite around a set of achievable demands.