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.