Report from cost of uni meeting

THE CULC TEAM

The message from our round table discussion was clear: students in Cambridge and across the country are not receiving the support they need and deserve to thrive at university. Some people find that their mental health is being impacted and differences are more and more stark between those who have the financial support they need and those who are struggling.
Students are now leaving university with an average debt of £57k and what is striking is that this debt is crippling exactly on those who from the start should be getting more support from our Government and our universities. Rakib Ehsan, Researcher at the Intergenerational Foundation, provided us with some insightful points on the issue of student debt and impacts on one’s future career satisfaction and sense of entrepreneurship. Those with the most debt are also less risk-averse. This affects students right from the university application process into their working lives, with those from lower income backgrounds particularly feeling locked out of degrees and careers in the arts. We don’t believe this is either a fair system or one that makes economic sense if we want to encourage people to take on all the opportunities available out there to contribute to our economy and our future.
CULC also would like to praise the hard work done by both Shadab and Laura on fighting to make our universities more accessible for people from different backgrounds. Schemes like CUSU’s shadowing scheme are a massive help in getting the word out about the support available in our university. However, both the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University’s students do still struggle with their finances when in uni.
Sheri-Ann, Labour Students’ General Secretary was also able to share with us stories of students from all over the country experiencing some real difficulties managing their finances and how we desperately need a Labour Government to radically change the current situation.
We now wants your help to take this campaign forward and make a real difference!
We will be focusing on the Hidden Costs of University and how every little thing does add up. Some are more serious than others, of course, and we will be addressing all of that.
Disabled students may often struggle to cover costs of medication, special equipment and so on.
We have heard of LGBT+ students going through the most upsetting process to ‘prove’ estrangement from their parents to be able to get that extra support they need which is not covered by a maintenance loan.
Students, however, also do struggle with rent, abuse from private landlords charging outrageous upfront costs, as it is the reality for ARU students and even with the cost of transport of going back home for the holidays if you don’t live close to your university.
The cost of moving in and out of university is also a burden and international students are faced with the extra costs of renting out private storage over the holidays.
While some of these examples may seem trivial on their own, CULC wishes to highlight that when we add all these up, our ‘cost of university’ is currently unaffordable as the marketisation of our universities continue to push up the price of education. Meanwhile, the support we receive, either in the forms of bursaries or loans is simply not enough when we take all of that into account and the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is not a viable source of support.
The focus of our campaign will be on awareness raising and starting a debate about the suitability of our university financial system.
We will be collaborating with other universities around the country to learn more about the reality of students in education today and will be sharing our findings.
Please do contribute to this by telling us about your experience with student finance and your most outrageous costs at uni. Is your laundry cost too high? Is your college restaurant too expensive? Was your gown a bit more than you had budgeted for? No issue is too small! Share all with is in here: https://goo.gl/forms/OpsGU3Gl7oswEQgD2 and we will be updating what we find regularly!
Let’s start a conversation and work together to challenge these costs and the poor support to cover them!