Staff at Liverpool Hope University are the most recent victims of the nationwide university funding crisis.
University management has confirmed that dozens of staff members will be made redundant across social sciences, humanities, education and creative arts. Not only this, but over a hundred staff members have been sent letters informing them that their job is at risk, meaning staff members will have to wait months with this threat dangling over their heads to even know if their job is secured or not.
In response to such a frontal attack on workers, two days after this announcement, over 200 students and staff protested at Hope University outside the vice-chancellor’s office, whose salary reportedly stands at £264,723.
The message of this demonstration couldn’t have been more clear. Students are appalled at this treatment of lecturers and staff.
Every worker or student who spoke was rightfully completely against these attacks. How can the university cite financial shortcomings when it has individuals on a quarter of a million pounds a year? The university claims these draconian attacks are necessary. It should open the books for its own workers and students to see where the money is going.
Regardless of the financial situation, this is not an isolated case. There is a funding crisis among many universities with hundreds of jobs at stake elsewhere. Hope University isn’t the first and it won’t be the last to be struck with cuts, with many universities actively running deficit budgets.
The only policy Labour has offered is increasing the burden on students with increased tuition fees for the first time since 2012.
The real solution is simply funding, not more fees. The Labour government must provide education with the adequate funding it so desperately needs. Despite what the Labour government has repeatedly stated, there is an abundance of wealth in society. With private energy companies alone making £120 billion in profit in the past years – five times as much as Rachel Reeves’s fiscal ‘black hole’ – the money workers need is clearly there. These companies should be nationalised under democratic workers’ control and their wealth used to protect workers and students. If the Labour government won’t do this then the trade unions should form a new party that will.
Socialist Students held a successful day of action on 13 May, building a visible and defiant stand against devastating cuts proposed by university management.
Many shared sadness and disbelief at the university’s decision to axe its media and television course during Bradford’s tenure as the UK City of Culture. Culture means little to profit vultures.
There are proposals to stop their flagship chemistry course, close down the university nursery, and slash 300 jobs – an eye-watering 20% of the workforce.
The protest was backed by the University and College Union (UCU) branch. And staff from across the university came out in support.
Further solidarity was shown online by Unison union at Leeds uni, which promoted the protest in the days prior. Supporters of Bradford and Shipley Trades Union Council also attended.
This action was the result of weeks of consistent organising. Through weekly campaign stalls, online promotion, and raising the issue at local trade union meetings, we heard the frustration and growing anger from staff and students.
Support wasn’t just garnered from the university community. Cars going by our action blared their horns in support, crowds across the street shouted their sympathies, and passers-by commended our efforts.
All of this just goes to show the growing awareness of austerity and the national crisis in higher education funding. Uni vice-chancellors are earning more than the prime minister, and making decisions at the cost of student’s futures and staff livelihoods.
There was overwhelming support for strike action in Bradford UCU’s indicative ballot. Socialist Students continues to organise, raise awareness, demand no redundancies, no austerity budgets, and free, fully funded education for all. Because a post-16 education is not a commodity.
What future do young people have today? The wealth of the richest 1% soars. But all we get are countless wars and climate destruction. The cost of everything is getting higher and higher – from phone bills and food prices to transport fares.
Rent is unaffordable. Wages are too low. Education is under attack. And under Labour, things are only getting worse. In this cruel capitalist world, it’s no wonder so many young people struggle with their mental health. Some students don’t receive mental health support, due to underfunding – services for all young people are inadequate.
This Labour government has shown it is no different to the conservatives. Even before they were in power, Labour backed the Israeli state’s assault on Gaza. Since forming a government, they’ve raised tuition fees for the first time in nearly a decade, refused to end age-based pay discrimination, and announced plans to restrict disability benefits – including raising the age for young people to access Personal Independence Payment from 16 to 18.
Whether it’s enabling war and poverty overseas or attacking the futures of young people in Britain, Starmer’s Labour Party is always on the side of the super-rich elites and their capitalist system. Starmer has rolled out the red carpet for Trump to visit the UK, both of which defend the same capitalist system.
This capitalist system, prioritises short – term profit over the majority of people’s needs at every turn, from education and housing to healthcare, jobs, and the environment, as well as stoking racist and homophobic division.
There is an alternative
The resources exist to provide everyone with a decent standard of living. The top 100 UK companies hand over £80 billion a year to shareholders – money that could instead be used to fund high-quality housing, free education, public transport, and well-paid jobs.
If we took all the major corporations and banks into public ownership, run democratically by working-class people to meet people’s needs and not for profit, then everyone could have a decent well-paid job, a high-quality home, free public transport, and access to free education and healthcare. It would be a socialist society based on collaboration and solidarity between people, laying the basis for ending all war, oppression and where human need and environmental sustainability come first.
We can fight back!
We’ve seen the power of working-class collective action. When workers across the country took strike action in recent years, they forced both bosses and the Conservative government to make concessions on pay, conditions, and funding for our services.
If the trade unions can fight and win under the Conservatives, then they can do the same under Labour. Every young worker should join a trade union, get active and fight for a socialist leadership which could be fighting for a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all – with no exceptions based on age.
Students also have the power to fight back and link up with workers doing the same. Socialist Students members in colleges and schools have recently organised walkouts and campaigns against the war in Gaza, and also fought for the right to meet and discuss socialist ideas. We have seen huge movements initiated by students take place in Serbia, Bangladesh and elsewhere at the forefront of challenging capitalist governments power.
In 2021 students at Pimlico Sixth Form College in London went on strike to protest the racist uniform rules, and against the removing of Black History month from the curriculum. When we fight, we can win change.
But we need political representation for our movements. Labour won’t represent us. Neither will the Tories, Reform, or the other pro-capitalist parties. They represent the interests of capitalism whilst expecting young people to quietly accept a system that fails us.
We say: enough. It’s time to build a new political force – a mass working-class party with socialist policies that gives a voice to our struggles and a vision for a socialist future.
We say:
For fully funded, free education – introduce living grants for all students, scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt, and stop cuts to courses
Divestment from arms and big business – no place for profiteers from war and exploitation in our education
Mass trade union struggle for a £15-an hour minimum wage now! Ban unequal youth pay rates and scrap zero-hour contracts
End the housing crisis! For a mass building programme of high-quality, affordable council housing
Take the wealth off the super-rich! For the banks, monopolies and major industries to be owned and run by the working class to meet everyone’s needs, not the profits of a few
Build the socialist opposition to Labour, the Conservatives, Reform and all the establishment parties! Build a new mass workers’ party with socialist policies to give working class and young people a political voice!
Our education system has been decimated by years of cuts – first under the Tories, now under Labour. Class sizes have grown. Teachers are overworked. Mental health support is practically non-existent. Buildings are falling apart. And now, Labour is planning to raise tuition fees even further – while diverting funding toward STEM subjects and away from vocational and humanities courses.
Socialist Students is organising lobbies of our local MPs, to see where they stand on education funding – and what they plan to do to represent us against this Labour government. Will they join our movement for free, fully funded education – to demand that big business foots the bill for education, not students and workers? Or will they stay silent as this government destroys our lives and futures?
Herts Uni Socialist Students featuring Morgan (middle)
Morgan Tritton, Hertfordshire Socialist Students
We started Herts Socialist Students in November 2024 and were frustrated by the inaction of the students’ union (SU) on our campus. At the University of Hertfordshire the SU has repeatedly defended the university’s actions over the interests of its own members – students ourselves. There is no real separation between the university and the SU which often echoes university management.
We investigated the SU’s governance, transparency, and action plan. We found little evidence of advocacy on urgent issues such as the cost-of-living crisis, tuition fee hikes, accommodation conditions, violence against women, and campus safety. What we did find, however, was stagnation – a culture that prioritises protecting the image of the university over fighting for the needs of the student body.
We raised our concerns at the November 2024 student council meeting. It took four months, and the submission of a formal motion, before any action was taken!
In April 2025, we submitted three motions: to improve SU governance and transparency, to allow free society memberships and open meetings, and to demand action on violence against women on campus. Prior to this, there had only been one motion passed in the last two years. We faced attempts to resist, delay, water down, or dismiss the motions entirely from SU staff. They downplayed safety concerns by citing a lack of official reports and claimed transparency had now been addressed and further student oversight was unnecessary.
We responded in full, challenged their narrative, and two days before the council meeting, the SU backed down. All three motions were debated and passed overwhelmingly. We came in force to a student council meeting to highlight inaction and received a positive response from students.
This fight is far from over. We are in contact with the SU President and Women’s Officer and will be meeting in the coming weeks. Our passed governance motion requires monthly officer updates, motion tracking, and scheduled council meetings, basic measures that should have existed already, and we will make sure these happen.
We are fighting to repoliticise and democratise our SU. We are organising not just for better policies, but for a shift in power on campus from unelected managers and bureaucrats to the hands of students ourselves, alongside representatives of staff unions. We must continue to scrutinise our SUs and question: who benefits from keeping students in the dark? Who benefits from an unorganised student body? University managements and the relationships they have with pro-capitalist politicians and big business.
The failures of Herts SU reflect a nationwide crisis across higher education, faced with a funding crisis universities constantly put their finances above the interests of students and staff.
As part of the Funding Not Fees campaign, we must confront every institution on campuses that facilitate poor student and staff conditions and rising costs for students. Compromised and undemocratic student unions, acting as extensions of university management, must be challenged as part of a broader fight for free, fully funded education, and fighting democratic student organisations must be built.
The following is the text from a letter sent from the Socialist Students steering committee to Alex Stanley, Vice President Higher Education for the National Union of Students (NUS), on Wednesday 9th April.
Dear Alex Stanley,
As you will know, there is a major funding crisis in higher education which is hitting students, staff, and local communities. Over 5000 redundancies have been planned by the vice-chancellors this academic year, with up to 5000 more to come according to the University and College Union (UCU). Students continue to suffer from a devastating gap between our living costs and maintenance support, and our futures are stalked by uncertainty in a volatile world of increasing war, climate crisis and poverty.
In response to the funding crisis in post-16 education, UCU has launched the ‘Stop the Cuts’ campaign, which includes a national demonstration in London on Saturday 10th May. Socialist Students will be rallying as many students as we can to the UCU demonstration, because we think this event – organised by the largest trade union in higher education, as part of a national campaign against the crisis of marketisation – can be a vital staging point for building a united student and worker movement for fully funded, free education. But that is also why we believe NUS must do everything it can to seriously build for this demonstration.
We call for:
NUS to encourage all students’ unions to arrange free or low-cost transport to Central London on Saturday 10th May, including financially supporting students’ unions to do so if necessary
NUS to issue the call to all students’ unions to actively promote the UCU demonstration among its members – including: emailing details of the demonstration to students; organising leafleting sessions; and postering across campus
NUS to produce a public statement in solidarity with the UCU ‘Stop the Cuts’ campaign
NUS to hold a national online meeting, open to all who wish to attend, on the topic of, ‘How students can unite with staff for fully funded, free education’
We recognise that NUS has begun campaigning around funding for education, and welcome the ‘A Fair Deal for Our Future’ campaign, which includes the demand for better maintenance support. However, we believe student leadership has to go much further in raising what is needed for a genuinely fair and free education system for all. Socialist Students has launched the Funding Not Fees campaign this year, raising the following set of demands:
No to Labour’s tuition fee hike – scrap fees and cancel student debt
Living grants, not loans
Stop all cuts and closures on campus. End low pay and casualisation of staff
Divestment from arms and big business – no place for profiteers from war and exploitation on our campus
We would appreciate the opportunity to discuss further what ideas and strategy are needed to mobilise students alongside staff in a movement for free, fully funded education. To this end,please could we arrange a meeting at the earliestpossible convenience between NUS representatives and members of the Socialist Students steering committee?
In solidarity, Socialist Students steering committee
Hannah Ponting, Socialist Students candidate in Liverpool student election
Student union elections provide a great platform to voice socialist ideas on campuses. At Liverpool university, we collaboratively created a manifesto focusing on socialist policies, and subsequently selected a candidate who could put forward these policies, and represent socialist ideas in this election. I am very proud to have been that candidate.
The first of our main policies was fighting against Labour’s recent tuition fee hike, and for free education. The increasing cost of university should not be a barrier to young working-class people pursuing higher education. We based this policy around the Funding Not Fees campaign, launched by Socialist Students nationally.
The increasing cost of living is a significant concern to students. Funding life at university is becoming increasingly difficult. We focused on fighting to expand bursaries and reinstate the university’s food pantry, which was previously scrapped.
The university’s night bus is another service which was previously scrapped, although was reinstated due to campaigns led by Socialist Students. We said, expand the night bus to more areas in and around Liverpool, and to increase its frequency to every half an hour.
There has been a recent crisis of violence towards women and girls on campus. We believe that it is necessary to fight for all students to have a genuinely safe, reliable, and affordable way home.
Fight job cuts
Cuts are occurring at universities around the country. Liverpool uni refused to be transparent with the University and College Union (UCU), when pressured about its own job cuts.
We said the university must open its books and have financial transparency. This also extends to fighting for divestment from arms companies.
We held campaign stalls, and other leafleting and postering. We got a brilliant response from both students and workers on campus, with discussions about the cost of living and cuts to disability benefits.
We also held a public meeting. It provided a brilliant chance to explain our policies, and allow for any questions to be asked.
I spoke at endorsement meetings of other societies, such as Labour Students, to advocate socialist ideas to more students.
We achieved 151 first preference votes, rising to 192 when transferable votes were added. 9th place out of 24 candidates. The top four were elected.
There is an appetite for socialist ideas on campus. It’s our job to direct the frustration that young people are increasingly feeling – with the capitalist system and Labour government –into an organised movement.
Socialist Students sends solidarity to the mass protests in Turkey fighting back against the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Despite an official ban on demonstrations and other restrictions, university students and young people have been organising for many days on campuses and on the streets, heroically battling against police brutality. Students in a number of areas have launched boycotts of their universities.
The protests were set alight by the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, on alleged corruption charges, just as he was set to be announced as the presidential candidate for the main capitalist CHP opposition party. This follows a series of arrests of hundreds of trade unionists, socialists, journalists and other activists, as Erdogan tries in desperation to clamp down on any opposition to his increasingly unpopular government. His government has implemented a new round of brutal cuts to public spending, and overseen relentless attacks on democratic rights.
As students in Britain, we stand in solidarity with the struggles of young people in Turkey for an end to state repression and worsening living standards. The university and school students at the heart of the mass protests in Turkey say that see no future for themselves the way things are today. The outlook in Britain is no different, where Keir Starmer’s Labour government is overseeing devastating cuts to education, while allowing an ever-growing gap between young workers’ wages and the cost of a decent life. Around the world, all young people see is a capitalist system in crisis – war, oppression, poverty, climate catastrophe and misery for the vast majority of people.
Socialist Students fights for a socialist alternative to capitalism, as the only way to give all young people a decent future free of poverty and oppression. This means students uniting with the working class in a mass movement that is armed with a socialist programme to transform society – fighting to take the banks and major companies that dominate the economy under the democratic control and management of working-class people, so that society can be planned to meet the needs of all people.
Let’s organise to kick out Erdogan, Starmer and all the capitalist politicians along with their sick system!
Solidarity with protestors fighting Erdogan’s regime in Turkey
End the attacks on democratic rights
Fight the cost-of-living crisis and kick out Erdogan
Fight for a socialist alternative to Erdogan, Starmer, Trump and all the capitalist politicians
Student Justice for Palestine held a peaceful protest at the University of Arts London (UAL), protesting against our university’s compliance in the current genocide of Palestinians. The university has continually ignored and blocked student demands that our tuition fees should not be used to fund war and arms deals.
Protesters temporarily occupied a space on Chelsea campus on 17 February to declare that the university chancellor Clive Myrie cannot and will not get away with silencing students and staff. Just two hours after the occupation, students received verbal threats from the management to vacate the premises by 9pm, or face disciplinary action.
The purposeful use of vague terminology of the code of conduct, and heavy police and security presence is part and parcel of the university’s intimidation tactics. UAL has a history of abusing its code of conduct to silence its students and staff from expressing their freedom of speech and right to protest.
After an emergency rally to protest university’s intimidation tactics, it was decided that we would end the encampment, as this was in the best interest of international students, who are here on visas, and already facing disciplinary action for peacefully protesting.
Occupation
Student Justice for Palestine has stated that it will continue to hold space on the campus, hosting readings, discussion, and other pro-Palestine events over the next week until its meeting with the university chancellor and other board members.
This is where they will again negotiate student demands on divesting from Lvmh, Lloyds Bank, and L’Oréal, changing its current definition of antisemitism that protects Zionism, and to protect and support its Palestinian students.
UAL Socialist Students stands in solidarity with Student Justice for Palestine. We condemn the university management on their consistent refusal to cut any ties with big companies who are complicit in the slaughter of Palestinians.
We support the demands that students have put towards our university. And we support our fellow students and staff’s right to strike, protest, and occupy as means of getting these demands met.
We should decide
We call for elected committees of students and staff to have democratic control over how our money is being spent. We should all be asking ourselves why do our universities continue to invest and collaborate with arms dealing companies in the first place?
Keir Starmer’s Labour government must tax the super-rich, and create a fully funded education system that is of higher quality, and accessible to all students of all backgrounds.
Socialist Students believes that this is all comes to a much larger issue that needs a systemic change – socialist change. We need a new mass workers’ party that stands on an anti-war, socialist programme – fighting for free education, decent, affordable housing, and against war and austerity.
March 8th is International Women’s Day. It was founded by socialists over one hundred years ago as a day of campaigning for the rights of all women – for decent working conditions, for a political voice, and for a life free from sexism and exploitation.
In 2025, this fight is still going on. From the dismantling of Roe v Wade in the US, which saw the removal of abortion rights from millions of women, to the mass movement in Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini by the ‘morality police’, there are many recent examples of attacks on women being met with protests and resistance.
Socialist Students is campaigning for socialist ideas to build a united mass movement that can fight back against all attacks on women’s rights, and put an end to sexism and violence against women for good.
End sexism and violence against women on campus
Reports consistently show that around three quarters of women students experience sexual violence while at university. The numbers are similar for colleges and sixth forms. Many victims are forced to take measures such as skipping lectures, changing course modules, or even dropping out of study to avoid their attacker.
The majority of sexual assaults take place on our campuses. On top of this, the rising cost of living and inadequate maintenance support force working-class students especially to take part-time jobs alongside their studies. Many have to work in the night-time economy, forced to make their way home after work in the dark, alone. Sexist harassment is rife in industries like hospitality, where a big proportion of women students work.
Yet universities are doing far too little to end the problem of sexism and violence against women. Only 2% of students experiencing sexual violence feel both able to report it to their university and are satisfied with the reporting process. Clearly we can have no faith in unaccountable university managements to protect students.
Students’ unions and trade unions must organise and campaign against sexual harassment in workplaces, including schools, colleges and universities. Introduce democratically elected committees comprising students and staff to investigate all reports of sexual assault and sexist abuse.
Fight back with funding and free education
As successive Labour and Tory governments have slashed direct government funding to universities, vice chancellors have obediently carried out cuts – including to things like counselling services, campus lighting, transport, and student bursaries, all of which has left students further exposed to the effects of sexism and sexual violence.
Socialist Students societies have launched numerous campaigns against cuts to campus jobs and services – such as in Liverpool, where we successfully campaigned for the reinstatement of the night bus. We think a key part of challenging sexism on campus is building a united movement for free, fully funded education instead of the current marketised tuition fee system.
Neither Labour nor the university managements have any alternative to the worsening conditions on campus, because they work within the framework of capitalism. Accepting this ‘profit-before-all-else’ system means accepting that a tiny elite in society gets richer and richer, while education and other public services crumble – with workers and students made to pay the price.
Organise on campus to fight to provide adequate resources for women who have experienced sexual violence. Fight to end the marketised basis of universities, by campaigning to abolish tuition fees. Fully fund education, cancel student debt and replace student loans with living maintenance grants for all – take the wealth off the super-rich.
The current unelected university managements can’t protect students’ right to a safe and rewarding education. Students and staff should democratically run our universities instead. Build democratic, fighting students’ unions that can link up with the campus trade unions and fight for the high-quality education we need.
Build a new mass workers’ party that gives students and workers from all backgrounds a political voice – a socialist alternative to Starmer, Farage and all the establishment parties and politicians.
A socialist alternative to sexism and capitalism
Socialist Students fights against all sexist ideas and behaviour, which exist not just on campus but all across society, perpetuated by capitalist institutions and corporations.
To seriously challenge sexist ideas means building a mass movement against capitalism, which is an inherently unequal system that benefits from sexism in countless ways.
Capitalism saves vast profits by consigning responsibility for childcare and housework to individual families, predominantly to the women within them. Women workers are paid less than men (in higher education the gender pay gap is about 20%) and this in turn reinforces ideas about women’s unequal status. The media, as well as the beauty, fashion and leisure industries, all benefit from the commodification of women’s bodies, promoting harmful stereotypes about how men and women should look and behave. The ruling class also relies on sexist ideas as one way to divide working-class people and weaken our ability to collectively fight their attacks.
A socialist revolution would remove this capitalist basis for sexism. All of society’s wealth, resources and technology would be used as part of a democratic plan to meet everyone’s needs. It would be a system based on cooperation and solidarity, and these values would come to be reflected in personal relations and culture. By removing the material basis for sexism, it would be possible to dislodge all sexist ideas and attitudes over time.
Build a movement that fights to take the wealth and power out of the hands of the super-rich and the elites. For a socialist world in which the working class democratically runs society to meet the needs of all people, to lay the basis for ending sexism and all forms of oppression
Do you want to kick sexism off campus?
Do you agree with our socialist ideas to end sexism and violence against women? Get in touch to get involved in campaigning alongside a local Socialist Students group. We want to hold protests and marches, organise outreach campaigns through leafleting and petitioning, and build pressure on students’ unions to publicly support and campaign for the socialist policies outlined in this leaflet.
Students and workers protest against Cardiff uni job cuts. Photo: Cardiff Socialist Party
The vice chancellors have ramped up their offensive on university students and staff this year. More than 2,000 new redundancies have been planned since the start of 2025 alone. This figure will rise even higher in coming weeks, as a number of institutions are yet to confirm the scale of their announced cuts. At several universities the planned redundancies amount to 10% or more of the workforce.
For students, the threat of mass course closures comes on top of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, as well as a tuition fee hike next year that will do nothing to resolve the crisis in higher education.
Socialist Students is serious about fighting to end the uni funding crisis, by mobilising students to demand no course cuts, no job losses, and for free, fully funded education.
Workers in the University and College Union (UCU) have responded to attacks by balloting for strike action in at least a dozen university branches so far. And Unison is currently balloting tens of thousands of its members in higher education. Socialist Students groups will organise for the biggest-possible student attendance at picket lines, and build for solidarity action.
But students should not limit ourselves to an exclusively supporting role in the struggle. We can propose our own initiatives, within which we invite the trade unions on campus to play a leading role. That way we can show that students are serious about fighting and pro-active in our determination to fight shoulder to shoulder with staff. That is the most inspiring kind of solidarity that students can give in this fight for the future of higher education.
For Socialist Students groups, this means putting forward a plan of action that can organise staff, students and working-class people locally in a campaign to fight back as soon as any cuts are announced. We can build for mass meetings, hold protests, organise lobbies of MPs, collect signatures for an open letter or petition – there is no shortage of options.
A plan of activity can bring people together. But what transforms a series of gatherings into an effective movement is a clear political programme of demands to fight for. Socialist Students has launched the Funding Not Fees campaign as a way of putting forward the ideas we think are needed to build such a movement.
Socialist Students says:
No to further fee increases – get organised on campus to fight for free education! Cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
No cuts and no closures! Build democratic student organisations to link up with campus trade unions and the wider working class to fight for the funding our universities need
Kick big business off campus! End marketisation of our education. Open up university finances to democratic oversight and control, including by elected students’ representatives and campus trade unions, with the power to terminate all contracts and research tied to war, occupation, profiteering and exploitation, while guaranteeing jobs and funding
Students need a political voice. Build a new mass workers’ party that will stand up for students and workers and fights for socialist policies
Fight for socialist change. For democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future
Cardiff Uni – pressure wins £19 million from Welsh government
Aris Prevost, Cardiff Socialist Students
On top of 400 jobs cut at Cardiff Uni, 200 job cuts have been announced at Bangor Uni and 90 at University South Wales. Having previously said that there is no more money, and under popular pressure and protests, the Welsh government has announced £19 million investment into higher education in Wales.
However, this does not mean a final victory. A one-time £19 million cash injection will only partially stem the tide of cuts. Cardiff University alone faces a £30 million deficit. It’s £15 million at Bangor and £20 million at USW (see below). But this additional money will not solve the funding crisis. In fact, it remains unclear where this money will go, and what strings are attached.
We demand an immediate end to all cuts, and that pressure is put on governments in Cardiff and London for adequate funding.
The fightback at Cardiff Uni is clearly working. The uni bosses’ position is growing weaker by the day. A unified student and staff pushback can force the university to halt all cuts.
As part of the fightback, there was a demo organised by music alumni on 22 February, where they played a public concert outside city hall. The concert loudly highlighted the cultural impact that music in Cardiff has. Cardiff has many independent music venues and cultural roots which have been under attack, including the closure of the beloved venue The Moon.
Other events are being planned, especially targeting uni open days as well as organising further marches and rallies.
Moving forward, we need to push for an alternative funding model to fix higher education. It is only by running education as a public good rather than a commodity to be sold that we will be able to end this crisis and save jobs. We need a new workers’ party that fights for free education, fully publicly funded by making the super-rich pay!
Uni South Wales students build cuts resistance
Suzie Matthews
Following in Cardiff University’s controversial footsteps, the University of South Wales (USW) announced on 17 February its plans to axe around 90 jobs, including entire courses.
In response, Rhondda Cynon Taf Socialist Party held a campaign stall in opposition, and student support was immense. Under the hypocritical shadow of a crane building a shiny new block, more than half of the students who passed by stopped to sign the petition.
There was the distinct sense that something ought to be done. Three students left their details to find out more about joining the Socialist Party, one suggested organising a protest. The atmosphere isn’t yet one of anger – though that can change when cuts to specific courses are announced.
We have been campaigning at USW for a while now. Staff and students have told us about cuts to Maths courses and professional services, fearing that what is happening at Cardiff would arrive at their doorsteps. It is difficult to view USW as an institution struggling for money whilst a new building is being thrown up. Students and staff are concerned about where these cuts will fall – many assumed that they will be primarily directed at the arts and humanities.
40% of students at USW are international students, a group that is hideously overcharged. Uni managements have blamed a drop off in international applicants for their budget deficits. But we can’t stand for cuts and job losses, we must fight for higher education fully funded by government.
Brunel Uni – workers strike against cuts
Ryan Leonard, Brunel Socialist Students
Staff at Brunel University were informed in October last year of a planned “significant academic resizing programme”. The plan was to make 130 redundancies of full-time academic staff and 79 profession service staff, a 14% reduction in staffing levels. It goes without saying that students were left in the dark, we were only informed of the university management’s plans by our lecturers.
Lecturers in UCU have announced a calendar of 16 strike days, escalating over a period of six weeks, beginning on 28 February. Socialist Students will be building student support for the strikes.
The vice chancellor of Brunel is Andrew Jones, a Labour councillor. He lists on his LinkedIn page “business planning” and “strategic thinking” as skills he’s gained from his role at Brunel. Just last year the university hired 139 academic staff… incredibly strategic.
For the last five years, Brunel has exploited international students, who can be charged far higher fees, as a source of income and despite being warned consistently over the last two years that the law around student visas would change, senior leadership continued on this path.
Students are rightly frustrated. Some of the people I study with have lost their tutors during their dissertations, which is terrifying. Planned redundancies don’t include the 69 members of the executive team, all earning over £100k. Nor the vice chancellor, earning £267k a year.
Our uni is not the assorted renovations that Brunel has carried out, totalling five times the savings made by sacking staff. Our uni is the educators, the students and the relationships between us. All of which will suffer if Brunel’s redundancy plan goes ahead.
Liverpool Uni – standing in SU elections to fight cuts
Hannah Ponting, Liverpool Socialist Students
After the numerous job cuts announced at universities across the country, lots of us were worried about similar cuts occurring in Liverpool.
The University of Liverpool has followed other unis and enacted a plan of ‘voluntary redundancies’ of staff. However, uni bosses are being extremely vague about the number of job cuts, despite pressure from the UCU for transparency.
This news comes only 17 weeks after the Labour government’s tuition fees hike. Job losses will have a negative impact on students as well as staff, emphasising the importance of uniting Socialist Students work with the demands of the trade unions.
Students Union officer elections are coming up. We are taking this as an opportunity to stand a socialist candidate in order to give a platform to our ideas. I am very proud to be that candidate, and to stand on an anti-cuts platform, aiming to build the Funding Not Fees campaign, as well as amplifying the voices of the uni workers.
In these times of increasing cuts at universities throughout the UK, it is increasingly important to keep socialist ideas visible on our campuses and to build the Funding Not Fees campaign, as part of our work as Socialist Students.
Coventry Uni bosses threaten ‘fire and rehire’
Frank Hammond, Coventry Socialist Students
Over 90 full-time staff members are set to be cut at Coventry University, with a further 200 staff re-enrolled under a subsidiary called Peoples Future Limited (PFL). A familiar fire-and-rehire fiasco is underway with whole courses set to terminated along with lecturers’ jobs.
Uni bosses argue the recent tuition fees rise will still not cover the uplift of National Insurance contribution rates, and that their contributions to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme is ‘unaffordable’. The bosses’ solution? Fire and rehire to remove staff from the scheme.
It should be noted that Vice Chancellor and CEO of Coventry University, John Latham, was reported to have received an £80,768 bonus on top of his £312,617 salary during the financial year ending March 2023. Furthermore, only five days after this decision was announced from the university in December 2024, Latham was named as a non-executive director of the Labour government’s Department for Business and Trade.
A lecturer within the university has personally expressed fear for their living situation to me as a result of the unacceptable decision; not originally from the UK and coming from a country that’s fought a war throughout the last few years, redundancy is one of the scariest words to throw around. Workers are once again being exploited, threatened and neglected. And yet, we receive nothing but silence or excuses from the ones in charge. Another example of “desperate times calling for desperate measures”, as per the standard under Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
Opposing the decision, Coventry Socialist Students has called a public meeting, working to spread the word to students, lecturers and unionists alike, in the interest of exposing unjust cuts. It will hear from a UCU trade union rep. We want to open a discussion of what can be done and ultimately making a shout to the bosses that this decision is not being accepted.
Hard-working people are currently at risk of being punished with seemingly no remorse from the staff at the top. Students kicking up a fuss is a warning to the higher-ups to heed as we continue with the Funding nor Fees campaign.
Socialist Students conference
Over 100 students came together for the Socialist Students national conference on 8 February. We discussed motions proposed by the national steering committee and different groups, and voted on whether or not these match the common consensus of those attending for us to put in the action in the coming year. My first year attending, as a delegate, has allowed me and many more another opportunity to see light at the end of the dark tunnel of austerity.
Students travelled from north, south and all about to have their say in where we go as a movement next, to share concerns and opinions, and ultimately lend their hand in the fight for a fairer system.
To witness a strong crowd of young people who weren’t afraid to speak up, defend their morals and intelligently respond to ignorant criticism is rejuvenating and should strike worry in the hearts of the capitalists and ruling class. Support for the cause is indeed rising, people are seeing the petrifying portrait being painted by Starmer’s Labour government and want better. The experience has gifted me hope and strength to continue fighting for a socialist future.
Alongside many issues, a consistent offender echoed in the anecdotes of students were job cuts in universities across the country. I was able to use one of my contributions to give my own account of seeing cuts in higher education.
We remain determined to defend teachers and students, to fight for free education, and for socialist change.
Resist Bradford uni course and nursery closure
Tom Gibson, Bradford Socialist Party
Bradford university is laying off 300 staff, shutting down chemistry and media courses, and also shutting the university nursery. These are deep cuts that will take away the livelihoods of hundreds of hardworking people, who are either educating students or looking after children. These cuts will lock out many potential students who need the nursery to look after their children while they study, reducing access to education for those with young children.
Our campaign stall was warmly received by students and staff who were very concerned about these cuts. This is part of a wider effort by the Socialist Party in Bradford to combat cuts.
Unis being run as if they are profit-seeking companies has led to this funding crisis, downgrading of the quality of education. We will fight alongside staff and students for a publicly funded and free university system that is fair and accessible.
Socialist Students 