Students at the University of York protested against the ratification of an official Restore Britain Society on 22 May. The society has been getting lots of attention for its provocative social media posts. One, for example, advertises a ‘detain and deport pub golf social’, showing their racist scapegoating.
Speaking at the demo, I raised the role that all capitalist politicians, including the Labour government, are responsible for the growth of the right. By implementing austerity, and themselves using racist scapegoating to divide the working class and young people. Thousands of young people and students attended the March demo against the right, organised by the Together Alliance. But its slogan of “love, hope and unity”, won’t cut across the right – students need a better plan of action.
In York we have been calling for an open forum that students can use to debate and discuss the issues we are faced with. By putting forward a fight against cuts, for free and fully funded education and a united working-class fightback, we can cut across disillusionment and the ability of Restore to get an echo. We can’t just oppose the far-right, we need to get organised to strike at the heart of austerity and brutal student cuts.
York Students’ Union (YSU) does not play that role, and has defended its decision to ratify the Restore society as protecting free speech. One chant read: “How do you spell useless: YSU.” We completely agree. YSU has done nothing to help with the fight against bursary cuts this year. We’ve got to build the pressure and fight for the reimbursement of the bursaries.
Alan Milburn, the Blairite former health minister, has blamed too many young people going to university for the fact that almost 100,000 recent graduates are currently not in work or further study.
As part of his ongoing review into ‘NEETs’ (16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training), Milburn will instead push the government to reallocate funding to technical and vocational courses, which he says would better suit the needs of employers.
Clearly there is an urgent need for more funding in further education. Some college leadership teams are warning they could turn away thousands of prospective students this September, owing to insufficient government funding. Staff in the University and College Union (UCU) have taken nationally coordinated strike action this year in response to more than a decade of cuts, demanding real pay rises that are fully funded by the government.
However, what Milburn is proposing is a moving-around of the existing inadequate funding across post-16 education – in his words, “a better balance” in terms of “allocating resources”; taking from “overemphasised” higher education and giving to further education.
But why should more funding for further education come at the expense of higher education, which is already in a historic funding crisis? A fraction of the money currently sat in the bank accounts of the billionaires would be enough to fully fund both sectors. In contrast, Milburn’s plans would be a green light for university vice-chancellors to go even further in their brutal cuts to jobs and courses, and would increase the risk of university insolvencies.
And how would a ‘reallocation’ of resources be achieved in practice? More than half of higher education funding comes from students’ tuition fees, with UK undergraduate fees set at more than £10,000 per year. In comparison, students at FE colleges below the age of 19 do not pay a penny, with over-19s still only paying a fraction of what university students pay each year for a degree.
There is a danger therefore that Milburn’s recommendations to increase funding for vocational courses will envisage an even more marketised FE sector, in which student fees and private funding from big business both play a more influential role.
The reason that so many young people do not get a job after completing uni is because the capitalist bosses are increasingly not investing their profits back into hiring or training workers. Getting more school-leavers to take ‘technical’ courses is one way for the capitalists to make the government and individual students bear this cost of training. But it will not fundamentally change the lack of decent and stable jobs on offer to young people, across all educational backgrounds, which is a product of the capitalists refusing to invest in jobs during a time of crisis for their system.
What young people need is a real choice after leaving school. That means a fully funded and high-quality apprenticeship, training scheme, vocational course, or degree programme for whoever wants it – all with a decent job guaranteed at the end. That means fighting to take the vast wealth and resources, as well as the levers of power, in society out of the hands of the capitalist class, so that the needs of the working class could be actually reflected in a plan for how education and the wider economy is run.
The University of Hertfordshire has informed staff that it will be cutting humanities undergraduate courses – English Language and Linguistics, English Literature, Creative Writing, History, and Philosophy. A petition against the cuts already has over 3,000 signatures.
The uni has not responded to requests from staff regarding the security of their jobs, or how this will impact current students. Prospective students have not been told whether their offers to study the cut courses next term still stand. The University and College Union (UCU) says that staff were denied having input into the decision-making process, and were not given timelines for the cuts.
What’s the truth?
The university says that humanities courses are “no longer financially viable”. The uni vice-chancellor then wrote to staff, assuring that the university is financially stable, and the actions are “not being taken in response to an immediate financial crisis”.
Staff and students say that, by the university’s own admission, these cuts are not being driven by financial necessity, but by management falling in line with the wider marketisation of UK higher education.
In cutting humanities, the university will also create a ‘cold spot’ for these courses in Hertfordshire, meaning higher education will become less accessible to local, working-class, prospective students. Staff have called out the university’s hypocrisy in being a ‘widening access’ institution.
What do we actually need?
Staff and students at the University of Hertfordshire work and study on what feels like a perpetual building site. Management are narrowly focused on so-called profitable courses, and the perception of a successful university to attract international students, rather than actually delivering what students and staff need and demand.
Many Herts students recognise that the UK university funding model is broken, when we see that management treats education as a business first, prioritising reputation over student experience on campus, and the conditions and job security of staff.
Herts Socialist Students stands in solidarity with staff and the UCU in fighting these cuts. And students will be meeting with the vice-chancellor to demand answers.
Fin Cozens-Stott, Manchester and Salford Socialist Students
Socialist Students members from Manchester and Salford attended the Green May Day rally, organised by the Green Party Trade Union Group.
We spoke to people outside, and it was agreed we could have a Socialist Students stall inside too. This allowed us to talk directly to Green Party members, including local election candidates.
We’re pushing to encourage the Green Party, its internal groups, elected officials, and members to change course and reject the austerity mandated by this Labour government, by voting against cuts. When the Greens have been in power in local government, they have so far complied with Tory and Labour austerity.
Fighting austerity
Green-controlled Bristol Council put through £50 million cuts, while adding £60 million to council reserves. Manchester Greens supported the Labour council’s £6.7 million cuts, continuing the £400 million decline in funding since 2010, worsening council house waiting lists, which stand at 600% of the national average.
When we approached Green leader Zack Polanski at The World Transformed conference, he said that Green councillors had “nothing to do about it”. This is a mistake.
We had many people sign the ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party’ petition, calling on Zack Polanski to ensure Green councillors oppose Labour-enforced austerity by refusing to implement cuts. On the day, this included Aatif ‘Ate’ Zafar, newly elected Manchester councillor for Whalley Range, and Joe Gosling, Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) activist, and candidate for Stanley & Outwood East ward in Wakefield.
Adam Powell Davies, Socialist Students national organiser
The Labour government has announced that it will implement new rules aimed at ‘protecting free speech’ on university campuses.
Under the new legislation – originally drawn up by the previous Tory government – the Office for Students will gain powers to investigate and potentially fine universities over complaints made by university staff, external speakers, and other ‘non-student members’. A complaints system that excludes the roughly 3 million university students living in the UK – not exactly free speech for us!
It shows how, despite paying lip-service to ‘free speech’, the Labour government only wants certain voices to be heard. Like all capitalist politicians, they pick and choose whose speech to promote or suppress according to what suits them and the system they defend.
Where is the Labour government’s outrage at the managements of twelve UK universities who, as reported this month, have paid private security firms to spy on pro-Palestinian student protesters and academics? Will this not have a chilling effect on ‘free speech’ on campus?
During the Gaza solidarity movement on campuses in 2023-24, uni bosses imposed sanctions on students and staff for protesting on campuses, often over institutions’ links to the arms industry. Labour politicians and vice chancellors claimed these protests made students scared to speak out, supposedly infringing their ‘free speech’. Why would the freedom of expression for one section of students have to come at the expense of another?
Labour politicians and vice chancellors are currently working together to destroy higher education. They have the most to gain from sowing division among students and staff, while outwardly purporting to do the very opposite under the banner of ‘protecting free speech’.
As a vital counterweight, students need our own democratic organisations which could provide a genuine forum for all students to discuss and debate different ideas, free from the meddling of management and capitalist politicians.
To free society from a tiny capitalist elite using its wealth and power to police the language and behaviour of the vast majority, we need to fight for a socialist system under the democratic control of the working class, based on meeting the needs of all, not the profits of a few. Part of that struggle includes the fight for a democratically run education system that is free and accessible to all.
Ben Golightly, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate in Gwyr Abertawe (Swansea and Gower)
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidates are now the only ones in the Welsh Senedd election standing up for young people.
In 2021, Plaid Cymru promised an immediate £1,500 reduction in fees for Welsh-domiciled students at Welsh universities – with a “long-term goal of free university tuition.” But all that has since dropped from their 2026 Senedd manifesto, replaced by a promise of a review.
At the 2024 general election, the Green Party supported “the restoration of grants and the end of tuition fees”. However, in the 2026 Senedd elections, the Greens are instead now calling only for a pathway to “sustainably lower” tuition fees.
And in 2023, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer dropped Jeremy Corbyn’s free education pledges.
But the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition manifesto instead says: “University tuition fees should be scrapped”, and grants paid at a level “to allow students to study without having to work”.
That’s what we’re standing for. Apparently now in Wales, we are the only candidates that are.
We have a record, such as leading successful student rent strikes in Swansea and Bangor during the Covid crisis, winning millions of pounds back for students.
Promoted by Dave Warren for the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, both at 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton, Swansea SA4 3GS.
Keir Starmer’s government has announced that interest rates on student loans will be capped at 6% from September 2026. This decision is intended to calm growing outrage among students and graduates facing the rising cost of higher education. This small concession falls far short of addressing the actual problems with the system of higher education funding.
The cap will apply to ‘plan 2’ loans, taken out by 5.8 million students in England and Wales between 2012 and 2023. These graduates have massive debts, blown up by high interest rates meaning unless you are a high earner, the total amount owed increases even as it is being repaid.
While the interest cap is welcome, it is not a relief for students or graduates. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said the concession will reduce interest for higher-earning students but will do nothing for lower-earning students who will spend a lifetime stuck with a stealth tax paying off their debts. During a burgeoning youth unemployment crisis, where many young people are struggling with precarious employment and low wages, the student finance system continues to place a disproportionate burden on the poorest graduates. As the government has frozen repayment thresholds, by the end of this parliament, people working fulltime on the minimum wage will have to pay.
Government ministers have defended the cap as a way to protect borrowers from potential increases in inflation ‘due to the situation in the Middle East’. However, as household bills increase due to Trump’s war, this interest cap will not stop the working class from having to pay. Starmer’s government made it clear it was not on the side of students and young people when tuition fees were increased last year. As things stand, undergraduate fees will be over £10,000 per year by 2029, and with it, even more debt.
The National Union of Students declared the cap a “huge win”. It definitely proves the government is under pressure. A mass mobilisation of students and young people fighting for free education could win more. This cap is not enough to lessen the decades of debt that will be carried by millions of us. Socialist Students’ Funding Not Fees campaign calls for the scrapping of all tuition fees and the cancellation of student debt. Funding for our education system should come from taking the wealth off the super-rich, not students and workers.
Socialist Students Sheffield organised a demonstration against Trump and Netanyahu’s bombings and imperialist escalation in the Middle East. This is the first demo we’ve organised. From this, we got the contact details of several people interested in Socialist Students.
Our campaign started following our International Women’s Day discussion, which focused on the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement in Iran, following the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini by the regime’s ‘morality police’ in 2022.
We promoted our event on social media, had a dedicated leafleting session, as well as attending another student-led demo on campus. We held the protest at the lunchtime rush outside our student union building.
This protest reached different students compared to our previous campaigning. We’re organising more events and campaigns to grow our presence on campus.
Students at York St John’s University protested against sexual harassment, after a number of recent incidents in the student union bar.
As indicated by a number of students who spoke, these incidents are but the tip of the iceberg. To loud chants of “shame”, students spoke of even worse incidents of sexual harassment and rape on campus, where they have felt let down by the university and its provision of student support.
As several speakers said: “We’re paying almost £10,000 a year to be subjected to this”.
Socialist Students member and York St John student Anna spoke to the protest, raising a number of measures that could improve campus safety, including improved lighting, increasing funding to student support, and more.
And key to implementing that would be ending the marketisation of universities. That means they are starved of funding, as well as ensuring that such measures are under the democratic control of elected representatives of students and campus trade unions.
Socialists say scrap fees, cancel all student debt, take the wealth off the super-rich
Adam Harmsworth, Coventry Socialist organizer
The student debt crisis is back in the news after MPs launched an inquiry into Labour’s decision to freeze the repayment threshold for over 5 million graduates on Plan 2 loans.
Plan 2 loans were created by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government in 2012. Under the Plan 2 terms, graduates earning over a certain salary threshold pay back 9% of their income above that amount, chasing a debt that increases by at least RPI inflation. In November, chancellor Reeves fixed the threshold at £29,385 until 2030.
Labour is trying to shove more graduates stuck on low incomes into making repayments on loans that are impossible to pay off.
The ‘concern’ from sections of the establishment couldn’t be less genuine. Sir Nick Clegg, who co-led the Con-Dem government that trebled tuition fees after he pledged to oppose them, has called the system a “mess”. His solution is just to reverse some decisions made after he lost the election in 2015, but keep graduates stuck in horrendous debt.
In the Financial Times, Cambridge University’s new chancellor Lord Chris Smith (Tony Blair’s first culture secretary in 1997) criticised the high interest rates and the low repayment thresholds. But rather than consider if the tuition fees his government introduced were an abysmal idea, he instead argues that too many young people are going to university! So much for Blair’s “education, education, education”.
The National Union of Students (NUS) meanwhile has launched a petition merely calling for “fairer terms” on student debt. So far 12,676 students have signed. The NUS should be mobilising tens of thousands of students to fight for free, fully funded education.
University education is in crisis. Fees have risen while maintenance grants have been scrapped, yet universities are making cuts and still not balancing the books. 68% of students now work while studying, and food banks are popping up in uni buildings to support impoverished students.
The government can find money for war and backing US imperialism in a heartbeat, but is relying more on students, graduates, and university workers to keep higher education afloat.
Socialist Students are championing the fight for free education, and taking money off the super-rich to fund our universities – for funding not fees. Join the socialists fighting for a decent future for higher education!
Socialist Students 