The Socialist 31 January 2008

End this market madness

No more school closures!

Teachers' union calls strike ballot on pay

Anti-war protests save teachers

Labour councillors anger parents and tenants

New Labour attacking our vital benefits

Incapacity benefit cuts hit the sick

Hain resigns but stink of sleaze remains

Jail break from Gaza

Suharto: "One of the 20th century's biggest killers and greatest thieves"

US elections: The Barak Obama mirage

NHS in crisis

Debt and housing slowdown threaten Britain's time bomb economy

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

How Hitler came to power

Global warming, climate change and human activities - Part 2

Burslem postal workers march back to work

Giving the real facts on Burslem strike

National Shop Stewards Network meetings




Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/518/3697

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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.

In this issue

End this market madness