Tag: fees

Fight Labour’s fee hikes!

On By adampd1968In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Fund our education – take the wealth off the 1%

Build ‘Your Party’ to fight for free education and socialism

Starmer’s Labour government has confirmed its plans for university tuition fees to go up every year. Left up to Labour, our fees will rise to well over £10,000 by 2029. That’s after fees have already gone up this term – the first rise in almost a decade.

And what do students get? Not only are we set to graduate with even more student debt, our maintenance loans don’t even cover the cost of housing, let alone other essentials. Even those receiving the maximum maintenance loan this year would need to take 20 hours of paid work per week just to reach a basic standard of living.

Meanwhile, cuts to our education keep coming. Over half of universities are set to record ‘deficit budgets’ this year, the government’s own Office for Students has predicted. The University and College Union (UCU) estimates that uni bosses have announced 15,000 job cuts in the last year, destroying thousands of courses and even entire departments in dozens of universities.

Some vice chancellors are even looking at ‘mergers’ with other universities. But why should they get to decide this over the heads of thousands of students and staff? Their record is one of running our universities into the ground, in collaboration with successive Tory and Labour governments. We can’t trust any of them with our education, because they all accept a capitalist system that puts the profits of the super-rich before the needs of the vast majority – including the right to a decent education.

Workers have fought back – students can organise too!

By taking strike action last year, university workers were able to halt planned cuts in several universities. In Scotland and Wales, staff also won millions of pounds in extra government funding through their strikes.

Imagine how much more funding could be forced from the government if there was strike action on all campuses across the country! That’s why Socialist Students supports university workers taking strike action, including supporting a vote to strike in the current UK-wide strike ballots by four campus unions (UCU, Unison, Unite, EIS).

Socialist Students members will be on the picket line supporting staff in our shared struggle for funding, not fees and cuts. We campaign for student unions to be democratic, fighting organisations that give us a voice – including committing to building student solidarity whenever staff take strike action for better pay, conditions and funding.

On a national level, we have also been putting pressure on the National Union of Students (NUS) to give a clear lead to students against the current university crisis. Unfortunately, the NUS did not take up our proposal for a national ‘free education’ demonstration this autumn. Imagine what a different position students would be in now if the NUS had gone on the front foot against Labour’s attacks on education.

As a step towards the national representation students really deserve, even a handful of SUs linking up nationwide to coordinate campaigns for proper funding – not more fees and cuts – could have a big impact.

We won’t accept their crisis

The university sector is in a deep funding crisis. But the only ‘solution’ offered by this pro-big business Labour government is to raise fees and encourage even more cuts, pushing the burden even further onto staff and students.

Why should we pay the price, at a time when the rich have never been richer? The FTSE 100 biggest corporations in Britain have been paying out around £85 billion annually to their shareholders. Students and staff need to unite in a movement that could put that wealth in our hands in order to fully fund education. That would include making education free for all, by abolishing tuition fees and providing maintenance grants that actually cover students’ living costs.

If education was fully funded, university managements would not be incentivised to invest our tuition fees in arms manufacturers and other shady companies in order to boost income. They would have no justifications for making cuts. Student housing could be massively expanded and improved, with rent controls introduced to ensure no student is paying the majority of their income on a place to live.

Your Party must seriously fight for free education

Socialist Students initiated the Funding Not Fees campaign last year, as a means to get students organised alongside staff in a movement for fully funded, free education. As well as holding protests on dozens of campuses, a key part of the campaign has been lobbying MPs – fighting for our movement to have a political voice.

That fight could be massively boosted this year. Two MPs, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, have said they will build a new party. Over 800,000 signed up to find out more about ‘Your Party’ within a week of its announcement.

When Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, his anti-austerity, anti-war policies enthused hundreds of thousands of young people. A major reason for that was his offer of free education in the 2017 and 2019 general elections.

Now students have the chance for there to be a mass party that will fight fees and cuts, and fund education by making the super-rich pay.

Just the prospect of a new party fighting ‘for the many, not the few’ has Labour under pressure. At the same time as raising fees, the government has been forced to announce the reintroduction of maintenance grants for tens of thousands of students. While this is far from adequate, it is nonetheless a concession to the anger of millions of working-class and young people, who are desperately looking for a political alternative to Starmer’s war and austerity agenda.

Socialist Students members are joining Your Party and will do all we can for it to fight for free education, and a real socialist alternative to the misery that capitalism means for working-class and young people.

For a mass weekend demonstration against Labour austerity

Socialist Students is supporting trade union activists calling on the TUC (the organisation bringing together 5.5 million trade union members) to name the date for a mass weekend demonstration against Labour austerity – ideally Saturday 22 November, just before the Autumn Budget on Wednesday 26 November.

We think Corbyn, Sultana and Your Party members should amplify the call for such a weekend demonstration, which could act as a launchpad for sustained trade union action in defence of workers and young people – including against tuition fee rises and cuts to university jobs.

What better way to announce Your Party as force through which young people could fight for a real future, a week before the founding conference on November 29-30?

Build a movement for:

  • No fee rises! Scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt
  • Bring back maintenance grants for all students, rising with inflation
  • Stop all cuts and closures on campus
  • Rent controls in student accommodation
  • End low pay and precarious employment
  • Divestment from arms and big business – no place for profiteers from war and exploitation on our campus
  • A political voice for students that fights to take the wealth off the 1% and for socialism

Wales uni fees rise – Welsh Labour tails Starmer’s attacks

On By adampd1968In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Aris Prevost, Cardiff Socialist Students

The Welsh Labour government announced recently that it would be following the Labour government in Westminster by raising university tuition fees. From September 2025, Welsh students in Wales will be charged £9,535 a year, an increase of £285. Fees had already been raised by £250 this September.

The changes bring the university sector in Wales in line with the English system, though key differences still remain.

The university system and its finances have been in the hands of the Welsh Government since the creation of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) in 1998. The Senedd can set the tuition fee cap for Welsh universities and set out funding and loans that students can get to help with finance.

In England, students receive a tuition fee loan to pay off tuition fees, and a maintenance loan to help with living expenses while at university. The amount a student gets depends on how much their family earns. In Wales, maintenance loans and grants work differently. All students get the same amount, but family earnings determine how much is a grant versus a loan. In addition, maintenance loans in Wales are higher than in England. English students living outside of London get up to £9,978 a year. Welsh students who live outside of London are entitled to £11,720.

Better deal?

Generally, the Welsh government has offered a marginally better deal for students. This would not have been the case were it not for students and organisers fighting to put pressure on the Welsh government.

Now these concessions are coming under threat.

The Welsh government is looking for ways to solve the lack of higher education funding, and trying to solve its own money problems. The solution it is choosing is to charge students more money while allowing universities to cut courses and staff members.

This is why the Funding Not Fees campaign and Socialist Students are so important, to fight back against the cuts that students in Wales have hard fought.

We demand the Welsh government immediately reverse the planned fees increase, and campaign alongside students in England for free, fully funded education with liveable maintenance grants, funded by the super-rich.