Students launch their ‘largest rent strike in British history’
Students at Goldsmiths, pictured, take part in a protest over soaring rent costs.
It is easy to understand why students in London are withholding their rent payments.
Thanks to the decisions of the Conservative Party, a university education for English students costs £9,000 per year. Add around £150 per week for accommodation in a university’s own halls of residence and they’re up to £14,850.
Then add in the cost of food and the materials needed for their course and these people are being asked to pay more than 20,000 a year. For the vast majority of them, that’s a debt they’ll have to pay off during their working lives.
But wages have been depressed since the Tories came into office with the Liberal Democrats in 2010. Admittedly, ex-students don’t have to pay back their debts until they start earning more than £21,000 per year – but who wants a £60,000+ debt hanging over them for their whole working life?
It’s a staggeringly vindictive way to treat the UK’s brightest young people – those who should be leading the way into the future.
The only possible rationale for such a policy is that it makes it extremely hard for any but the country’s richest to afford a university education.
And, as we see in the behaviour of the current Conservative prime minister, his chancellor, the former Conservative Mayor of London and the Tory candidate to replace him, the richest tend not to be very intelligent.
The cost of education means the UK is marching back into the Dark Ages – in more ways than one.
More than 1,000 students are now reportedly withholding rent payments at universities across London in what’s being described as “the largest student rent strike in British history”.
Strikers at the University of Roehampton and the Courtauld Institute of Art have joined those from Goldsmiths and University College London (UCL) to bring up the total number of protesters over the cost of accommodation prices they say are “soaring”.
As well as this, some of the protesters have complained about what they claim are below-standard living conditions.
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Love it. I was involved in the Student Rent Strikes back in ’72 onward, at the college that had the longest rent strike. Glad to see this generation fighting back, just sorry that they have to fight back. These debts are creating financial apartheid and robbing us of some of our brightest graduates, our future, our industry, our schools, our creative sectors. But I guess that’s what the neo con dream is – the rich 1% and a bunch of poor ill educated hungry homeless serfs to serve them. Hope the students win, and that they help get a party back into power who will restore the basic freedoms including access to education for all.
The Tory party really don’t give a damn unless your ultra rich. This should be spread around the UK.
The Elite want the best for themselves in all things it’s part of their culture
In my day (1960s) you were encouraged to undertake tertiary education and you received grants to pay for tutorship and halls in universities and polytechnics. The grant also contained an element of “pocket money” for incidental needs.
Students need to understand quickly how money is created and by whom – once they are armed with the provable truth, they can then help bring down the System which relies completely on using debt as a lever of power and control: http://www.thebcgroup.co.uk/What_Exactly_is_Austerity_V1.0.pdf