Students get ready for the term

The new student Campaign against Fees, Cuts, and Debt is making plans for the coming term. A conference on 31 July and 1 August brought together activists from around the country. That campaign is planning for days of action over the coming months. We need to be organised and ready for them.

Labour Party conference is coming up on 27-30 September, and gives us an opportunity to demonstrate that we are up for the fight. There has been a welcome change in tone from the government since Andy Burnham took over as leader, with Lucy Powell as Education Secretary saying that fees and funding are a priority issue, but no positive action.

Famous charlatan Nick Clegg, an architect of the trebling of tuition fees, recently said that he would take any criticism “on the chin”, but thinks the situation on student debt is untenable. What is untenable is a conman like Clegg rearing his head. He should scurry back into the hole he disappeared into, drop his involvement in AI, and hope for a peaceful life.

There is growing pressure in society around the levels of student debt and high repayment rates for graduates. Many bourgeois journalists now were students during or after the fee increases Cameron and Clegg brought in. Now they are willing and able to make noise about the issues from prominent media positions.

New term

The term starts in Scotland early in September (“welcome weeks” at Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee from 14 September), and the campaign will need to be ready with new issues of its student worker bulletin. Across Britain, at the start of term, there will be around 500,000 new students on campuses, many at universities where the courses and campuses are remarkably different from what was first offered to them a year ago when they applied. Universities have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on redundancies to get rid of staff under the guise of “cutting costs”. At A-Level results time, Exeter University announced that it was closing the geography course at its Penrhyn campus which students were in the process of accepting offers for.

Workers’ Liberty activists on campuses will be organising stalls and bulletin distributions with other activists from the campaign, alongside our own Workers’ Liberty Students activities. Get in touch and work with us to build the campaign against cuts, fees, and debt on campus.