by Stella Christou and Guy Howie (UCLU Marxist Society treasurer)
Central to my role as Education and Campaigns Officer would be campaigning
against all fees and debt imposed on students. The costs of fees and student living
shackle us with debt at a time when graduates are finding high-level employment
harder and harder to come by. The cost of university has also put many prospective
students off higher education, at an even greater cost to society.
As has been revealed in the plans to build a new campus in Stratford and to redevelop
extensively in other areas, the money is available for UCL to do away with tuition
fees and to provide a living grant for students. This money, however, is in the hands
of private investors, who will only fund ventures through which they can make a
return for themselves.
Disparity
The hike in tuition fees has already been damaging to the level of financial equality
reflected in university admissions. Where students cannot afford to study, others who
can will take their place.
This disparity will inevitably continue after university into the job market. This is
especially the case in London where graduate jobs are more widely available and
better paid than average, and yet it is difficult for those on lower wages to cope in
such an expensive city. Many low-end jobs are still below living wage.
That such an inequality could result from tuition fees and living debt is untenable, and
must be fought against.
The Only Option
To oppose all tuition fees and living debt is the only real choice open to students.
If tuition fees are accepted as they are, then it must also be accepted that they will
increase further. The global economic crisis is cutting deeper and deeper into Britain’s
public institutions. On the basis of capitalism, there is a growing need to cut the
national deficit and the increasingly involved private businesses seek a larger slice of
university takings. Furthermore, as rent prices and living costs rise, so too does the
burden of debt facing students when leaving university.
Campaigning for a concessional reduction in fees from the government, often
proposed as a more ‘realistic’ struggle, isn’t a viable option either. To suggest this
campaign line is to forget the increase in fees in the first place, and the fundamental
reasons behind it. Fees and student debt will increase as long as our economy is based
on crisis ridden capitalism, which offers only decades of austerity. Students should
not suffer according to the decline of an unstable economy they have played no part
in harming, and yet the rich are intent on making the poor and the youth pay for their
crisis.
We must not stray from campaigning against all fees and student debt.
Mass Campaign
The issue of student fees and living debt applies to the overwhelming majority of the
student body. Almost all of us will begin our lives as graduates already owing tens of
thousands of pounds in an economy digging itself deeper into the same hole. This is
not something any student should simply accept.
Our union must be accountable to us. In a campaign against fees, I will make sure
that the student body as a whole understands what it is fighting for and stands united,
so that the campaign is not simply limited to an already radicalised but small layer
of students. Our university cannot continue to diminish the needs of students and put
our education second to profiteering, something which is detrimental to everyone on
campus.
The campaign of UCLU against fees and living debt must also be linked to a wider
campaign against fees. The platform for this must be the body which represents
students nationally, the body which any mass organisation of students would most
naturally incline towards – the NUS. By making our voices heard in the NUS, I will
take an anti-fees campaign further into the larger problems in society as a whole. We
must also link UCLU and the anti-fees movement to the local and national trade union
movements.
We need a national movement of workers and students against the destruction of
public institutions, for free education and student living to benefit the whole of
society. Ultimately, we need to fight for a different kind of economic system – a
socialist one based on nationalised and democratically planned production – for only
that can plan the economy in accordance with need, not profit.
Vote Stella #1 for Education and Campaigns Officer!
Central to my role as Education and Campaigns Officer would be campaigning
against all fees and debt imposed on students. The costs of fees and student living
shackle us with debt at a time when graduates are finding high-level employment
harder and harder to come by. The cost of university has also put many prospective
students off higher education, at an even greater cost to society.
As has been revealed in the plans to build a new campus in Stratford and to redevelop
extensively in other areas, the money is available for UCL to do away with tuition
fees and to provide a living grant for students. This money, however, is in the hands
of private investors, who will only fund ventures through which they can make a
return for themselves.
Disparity
The hike in tuition fees has already been damaging to the level of financial equality
reflected in university admissions. Where students cannot afford to study, others who
can will take their place.
This disparity will inevitably continue after university into the job market. This is
especially the case in London where graduate jobs are more widely available and
better paid than average, and yet it is difficult for those on lower wages to cope in
such an expensive city. Many low-end jobs are still below living wage.
That such an inequality could result from tuition fees and living debt is untenable, and
must be fought against.
The Only Option
To oppose all tuition fees and living debt is the only real choice open to students.
If tuition fees are accepted as they are, then it must also be accepted that they will
increase further. The global economic crisis is cutting deeper and deeper into Britain’s
public institutions. On the basis of capitalism, there is a growing need to cut the
national deficit and the increasingly involved private businesses seek a larger slice of
university takings. Furthermore, as rent prices and living costs rise, so too does the
burden of debt facing students when leaving university.
Campaigning for a concessional reduction in fees from the government, often
proposed as a more ‘realistic’ struggle, isn’t a viable option either. To suggest this
campaign line is to forget the increase in fees in the first place, and the fundamental
reasons behind it. Fees and student debt will increase as long as our economy is based
on crisis ridden capitalism, which offers only decades of austerity. Students should
not suffer according to the decline of an unstable economy they have played no part
in harming, and yet the rich are intent on making the poor and the youth pay for their
crisis.
We must not stray from campaigning against all fees and student debt.
Mass Campaign
The issue of student fees and living debt applies to the overwhelming majority of the
student body. Almost all of us will begin our lives as graduates already owing tens of
thousands of pounds in an economy digging itself deeper into the same hole. This is
not something any student should simply accept.
Our union must be accountable to us. In a campaign against fees, I will make sure
that the student body as a whole understands what it is fighting for and stands united,
so that the campaign is not simply limited to an already radicalised but small layer
of students. Our university cannot continue to diminish the needs of students and put
our education second to profiteering, something which is detrimental to everyone on
campus.
The campaign of UCLU against fees and living debt must also be linked to a wider
campaign against fees. The platform for this must be the body which represents
students nationally, the body which any mass organisation of students would most
naturally incline towards – the NUS. By making our voices heard in the NUS, I will
take an anti-fees campaign further into the larger problems in society as a whole. We
must also link UCLU and the anti-fees movement to the local and national trade union
movements.
We need a national movement of workers and students against the destruction of
public institutions, for free education and student living to benefit the whole of
society. Ultimately, we need to fight for a different kind of economic system – a
socialist one based on nationalised and democratically planned production – for only
that can plan the economy in accordance with need, not profit.
Vote Stella #1 for Education and Campaigns Officer!
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