The revelation that the new tuition fees system – introduced in 2010 in the face of massive student protest – will in fact cost more to run than the old one, should come as a surprise to almost no one who paid attention to the debate over its introduction. A host of organisations and campaign groups warned from the outset that the increase in fees would save the government no money, largely as a result of the large costs of upfront borrowing and the fact that so many students would never earn enough to pay back their debt. The motivation behind the coalition's policies in education and the broader public sector has been nakedly ideological from the moment it came to power. This agenda does not stem merely from an intellectual belief in the power of the market to do good, but also from a goal of demolishing the last remnants of social democracy. The marketisation of higher education performs a particularly pernicious role: if it succeeds, it could transform the consciousness of an entire generation of people, replacing students with consumers and injecting the logic of the market into the core of universities – one of the few sectors partially shielded from the years of Thatcher and New Labour reforms. Over the past four years, we have gone from predicting the end of universities as a public service to witnessing it. Since 2010, international and postgraduate fees have rocketed, and unprofitable courses cut, as institutions seek to compete for the most profitable students. Staff conditions are under constant attack,
and this year lecturers have been forced to undertake a marking boycott in protest at the suppression of wages. Meanwhile, vice-chancellors and senior managers – many of whom lobbied for the new system – are increasingly treating universities as large private businesses. Institutions are outsourcing large swaths of their services, and those that can are attempting to vastly expand their operation into more lucrative commercial areas – often at the expense of local communities. The freedom to dissent on campus has already become a casualty, with the past year witnessing mass arrests, injunctions and unprecedented police intrusion on to campuses. This Wednesday, students in Birmingham will be demonstrating against the ongoing suspension of students involved in protest. What is truly astonishing about the fact the new fees system will lose money is not the financial illiteracy of the policy – for it is not in truth a question of miscalculation – but that despite constant opposition and an open indifference to the democratic legitimacy of its policies, the coalition continues to get away with it. Successive governments have been able to erode public funding for higher education because the ideology that underpinned universal public services has been abandoned by the political mainstream, and because the student movement has
mobilised patchily – sometimes with great force, but almost always without the help of the broader labour movement or even the National Union of Students (NUS). With a general election looming, the full-blown fight over higher education funding may well return. Any government elected in 2015 may be tempted to alter repayment conditions on student loans, or to raise fees again – as is already an open secret. If we are to stand any chance of salvaging public higher education, the student movement will need to escalate localised disputes over workers' rights and privatisation, clinging to its right to dissent, and build networks and organisations – such as the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts – capable of co-ordinating another major mass movement after the election. Importantly, however, the institutions that might support this movement – the NUS and the Labour party – must see the current policy for what it is: an ideologically motivated attempt to transform society, which was given licence by New Labour politicians, and which must now be met with a clear and equally transformative vision for free, accessible education.
The Student Union Election Manifesto. Steer clear of anything that sounds remotely familiar to this.
Hi. I’m running for [position] in [students' union name] because I care about what the union can do for you. I am a friendly and approachable person with the passion and commitment to take our union forward. I am passionate about my CV and committed to my future career. I have lots of experience sitting on some committee you’ve never heard of in a position you didn’t elect, where my spineless toadying brought minimal changes. I was head [boy/girl] at my school full of rich kids who faced no actual problems, and for some reason think that this fact is relevant to my campaign for a leadership position in a union. I have also served as [treasurer/secretary/persistent arse licker] of the debating society which is weird because I have no discernible opinions about anything. I will aim to represent all students rather than push a political agenda, because I’m afraid that if I tell people what I think about things, they will disagree with me.
I will rise above factional politics by refusing to ever commit myself to anything. Students are sick of politics getting in the way of achieving change. I will improve communication by sending out more ofthe same emails that people will, for some reason, actually read this year. Some people say that students have become apathetic. To them I say: I don’t care about this. But I will put my name to some wanky liberal campaigns that no-one except a hard-right nut-bar could complain about. Probably something to do with the environment. But I pledge to continue to use the myth of student apathy as a cover for my right-wing views. I have no principles in which to ground my policies so I will just write the first thing that comes into my head, something like [more vending machines/more student discounts/something vague to do with sports facilities] to make it sound like I’ve actually thought anything through.
I think it’s imperative that we keep the cap on tuition fees because I want to pay lip service to a tradition of student radicalism to which I have never belonged. We can achieve this through mature negotiations and not mindless activism. I passionately believe that people are stupid enough to fall for this crap. We need to find dynamic and efficient new ways of sitting on our arse for a whole year while the Higher Education sector is smashed to pieces. Vote for me because I am the pragmatic, experienced candidate and I will deliver on my promises, if you can remind me what any of them were. Here is a photo of me in some costume or other during freshers’ week to remind you that I like a laugh, really. And in the end, isn’t that what student unions are really about? Used with permission from thegreatunrest. wordpress.com.
Carefully plan your expenses.
University will be expensive.
Make sure you count the cost of how much everything is. A recent survey by the NUS found that the average yearly cost for being a student was £22,189; course costs for a student being £10,133 a year, broken down in to: £8,354 for tuition fees £709 for travel £1,070 for books That’s not counting London, and that was also assuming that not all universities are charging £9000 (which they most probably are). The avergage price for a london student, for example, the average year for a london student is a grand total of £23,521. Yup. it’s pretty fucking expensive, being a student.
When you go to a university open day, they are more than happy to tell you all about the prestige of the university, the graduates they have, how many actually get jobs (and that will be in numbers, not percentages. What isn’t mentioned, most of the time at least, is the amount you are likely to pay for accomodation, just that “it is close to the city”, and that students not living in university accomodation have “great transport links!” That usually means getting on a really cramped and sweaty university bus. Yeuck. And then there are things like the social life; you’re going to want to make sure that the social life in that particular city suits you. you don’t want to end up in
Liquid or Oceana every fucking friday. what a tragedy that would be. Make sure you get somewhere with a wide variety of social venues. Oh, and back to accomodation costs. you’re more than likely to be overcharged. I’ve helped put a motion together to go to NUS’s National Conference to campaign for halls costs to be reduced to £80 a week outside of london, and £100 a week inside. make sure you try and stick to this rule, especially when you move out of halls. don’t let your university of choice strip you of all of the money you get, you’re going to need it to get through the next three years. and it’ll help you avoid getting a part time job, which, honestly, sucks.
By Grant Chapman Clarke
You’re going to be paying a lot for this experience over the next 43 years.
Try not to Fuck it up. Like, Seriously. Try not to Fuck it up.
book….73254229474264/ or http://www.faceOther areas that have afbook….28296950590245/ fected students across the ), the Government HE country have of course White Paper (Ref. 2) has been the scrapping of EMA; been shelved until 2015, a government fund that alin which the main aim is to lowed students from poorer “turn students from learn- backgrounds to receive ers into consumers”(Ref. money to help pay for 3). As Jim Wolfreys assertstheir education. I put it to “the document contains the nay-sayers of the EMA no information on how the system; have you had to experience of teaching itself attempt to get to a school, will be improved – no detail pay for the textbooks and on how class size could be information, appropriately reduced, or how contact clothe yourself at school between academics and stuin the harsh reality of your dents might be maximised, peers who will judge you or how resources might be for whatever you do from directed towards teaching. a family that is on a pay Instead, there is an over roll of under £20,000? whelming pre-occupation, Myself, my friends and not with teaching, but with others were not using EMA amassing data about it…. as a means for a “jolly” or Despite much trumpeting an “easy ride”, but it was about “empowering” stu- helping us access university. dents, these measures will It is a crime that a scheme not serve the public interest. that helped thousands was Putting student surveys of scrapped by those who courses online, for example, never had to experience it. is less likely to “play a role in stimulating competition Again, another assault on a between the best acadmore local level; our access emies” as cable and willetscourses being scrapped. claim, than to produce a Prospective students will not climate of fear and central-follow hundreds of students ised monitoring”. This gov- who managed to enter the ernment white paper, whichuniversity through these will undoubtedly be boughtschemes as these courses to the commons in 2015 have now been scrapped at before the current govern- UoP. ment goes to election, is not in the interest in universities,The List goes on; students its students, or lecturers, who applied to our arts but ensures that the mar- courses not receiving what ketization of universities they paid for, and now will occur, in turn making students who will apply will smaller and less developednot have the ability to use universities prey for corpo- the creative services from rations that could dramati- their formers, including the cally change the face of our renowned artist Grayson Higher Education system.
loans scheme, the government had to sell off £6 billion worth of student loans between 2008-2011 (Ref. 1). This is a ticking time bomb for a future generation that this short sighted government has not thought of. In general terms, again, a government has kicked its problem metaphorical can down the metaphorical road of the future, to look as if a problem has already been solved in the present.
That was two years ago, so what is the present crisis? As has been mentioned a lot in online facebook forums (http:// www.face-
I used to think the NUS could do something. Now I have to cope with knowing they
Why have the NUS called for a national demo I hear many of you ask? Didn’t we already lose the tuition fees debate? Whats the point, why should we try and fight it if we think it’s going to be a losing battle? Here, I will try and answer a few of your points.
As you are most probably aware, large public institutions have faced the end of the post Lehman Brothers banking crisis Cuts, and the reason for government cuts was that it was to try and slash the deficit so as to not require a bailout of some degree from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). First on the chopping order was higher education, with the increase in tuition fees seen as a way to cut the deficit; however, this argument was illogical in the first instance as the government would have to increase its annual loan from the Bank of England to handle the amount of money being paid to the Student Loan Company which in turn then went to the Universities. In this sense, the Coalition has in fact INCREASED the deficit via this move, and as students are unlikely to pay much of this money back, for example, on the lower
DO NOTHING FOR ANYONE
Fuck Fees. Written, Designed, and produced by Grant Alexander Chapman Clarke. issue #1 of 1 Special contributions thanks to Michael Chessum, Jonathan Brady, and the Great Unrest