Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/518/3697
From The Socialist newspaper, 30 January 2008
Reality of London students' debt trap
Christmas may be over but many Goldsmiths students are still playing mousetrap. Halls of residences are supposed to provide students with safe, clean and affordable accommodation. The reality for many students at Goldsmiths, University of London, is neither clean nor comfortable.
James Kerr, Goldsmiths Socialist Students
Students staying at Batavia Mews hall, paying £85 per week (an average rent locally in the private sector) for the privilege, have reported a mouse infestation.
This has been reported to the accommodation office. But, because they sub-contract out to a private company to deal with rodents, many have had to resort to buying traps or improvising. This situation needs to be dealt with immediately and thoroughly.
Students living in halls face the prospect of huge debt through the introduction of top-up fees and sharp rises in food and travel costs. Now they are forced to share their expensive rooms with south London's squatting rodents.
Goldsmiths may have been included in a 2006 list of 'Coolbrands' alongside Nike and Pepsi and markets itself as "the UK's coolest university", but while the management have put a shiny veneer on the college, cuts and privatisation of services make Goldsmiths less attractive in the eyes of its students.
Goldsmiths Socialist Students will be taking up this issue and putting forward a fighting strategy for the student movement locally and nationally to defend students and education.
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In The Socialist 30 January 2008:
Education
Teachers' union calls strike ballot on pay
Anti-war protests save teachers
Labour councillors anger parents and tenants
Socialist Party news and analysis
New Labour attacking our vital benefits
Incapacity benefit cuts hit the sick
Hain resigns but stink of sleaze remains
International socialist news and analysis
Suharto: "One of the 20th century's biggest killers and greatest thieves"
US elections: The Barak Obama mirage
Socialist Party NHS campaign
Debt and Housing Feature
Debt and housing slowdown threaten Britain's time bomb economy
Socialist Students
Student elections: Not just a 'beauty contest'!
College students seek socialist ideas
Reality of London students' debt trap
More foo than fight as rockers agree to cross picket line
Marxist analysis: history
Global Warming
Global warming, climate change and human activities - Part 2
Socialist Party workplace news
Burslem postal workers march back to work
Giving the real facts on Burslem strike
National Shop Stewards Network meetings
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