Dean Young, Liverpool Socialist Students

Following A-level results day on 17 August, many young people will be going to university this year unaware that they will be faced with tough decisions because of the student funding system.

Reported in the Financial Times, outside London the average annual rent is £10,227, whereas this year’s maximum maintenance loan, given to students with the lowest family income, is just £9,978! Within London, the average student rent is estimated by the National Union of Students (NUS) to be an additional £1,200 per year.

For postgraduates studying a Masters degree the situation is even bleaker: the maximum loan available is £12,167 and the average Masters course fees, estimated by the NUS, are £11,000. This leaves just £1,167 to survive on for a whole year!

Because of this, students are forced to work jobs alongside their full-time studies to make ends meet, potentially even full time. This of course detracts from their ability to learn and succeed in their courses. And those who can’t find a job or afford to keep studying often have no other option than to drop out of their studies, with only debt to show for it.

How is it that higher education has came to this? How have we gone from having no tuition fees and debt-free access to maintenance grants in England, to annual fees of £9,250 and no grants or national bursaries? Pro-capitalist New Labour, Lib Dem and Tory governments introduced fees and marketisation at the expense of a publicly funded education system. They all ruthlessly gutted higher education funding to cut costs and saddle young people with a lifetime of debt.

Free education

What we need is a properly funded education system democratically run by workers themselves alongside democratic student organisations for the good of us all. An independent review, commissioned by the Boris Johnson government and published this year, called for a re-introduction of at least a £3,000 bursary for low-income students. While this would be a step in the right direction it would not be enough.

Grants shouldn’t be means-tested; they should be universal. The maintenance loan system should be replaced by a fully funded system of grants that students can live on, increasing in line with costs. Student debt should be cancelled. The access to free education for all must be fought for and paid with the wealth and resources of the banks, corporations and the super-rich.

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• Scrap fees, cancel student debt, and replace maintenance loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation
• Bring third-party halls into ownership and control of the university with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need
• Introduce rent controls in all student accommodation, to be decided by democratically elected committees including campus trade unions, staff and students
• For councils to use their powers to compulsorily register all private landlords as a means to improve housing standards and implement rent controls
• No evictions for students who can’t afford rent. Ensure access to emergency cost-of-living grants for all
• Ban agency and contract fees
• Launch a mass building programme of good quality, affordable student housing under the democratic oversight of students and local communities, alongside building the council housing people need
• For a fully funded higher education system to end the student housing crisis – take the wealth off the 1%