Socialist Students
Students in 2023 are facing more cost-of-living misery. 91% of students at the end of last year were worried about living costs, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Rising costs aren’t only causing us stress and worry however, they’re having a direct effect on our ability to study. 29% of students reported they were skipping non-mandatory lectures or tutorials in order to save money, while around the same figure said they were choosing to study from home and attend lectures remotely.
Thousands of students have been forced to take on new debts just to get by – an indictment of the disgracefully low amount of financial support students have access to through student loans.
Under pressure from students, some universities have been forced to commit extra funding to student hardship funds, and to pay small emergency energy grants to students living off campus, like at the University of York. The battle for genuine cost- of-living grants for all students, linked to the building of a movement which fights for the funding our universities need from central government, will be a key task for students who want to fight back against the cost-of-living crisis this term.
Despite the brief escape home many students will have enjoyed over the Christmas holidays, all of the worry and anger students felt last term will start anew in 2023. There is potential for this anger to be channelled into an organised fightback against the cost-of-living crisis and the marketisation of our universities.
In the sixth richest society on the planet, where the super-rich billionaires have increased their wealth by 1,000% over the last three decades, the resources are there to scrap tuition fees and loans, and replace them with living grants which are tied to the rate of inflation to provide every student with a high-quality education. However those resources are in the hands of the bosses, put to work increasing their wealth instead of under the democratic control of workers and students for what we need.
Socialist Students is meeting this year on Saturday 18 March in Birmingham for its national conference. This conference will be open to any students and student societies who want to work to build a movement to say we will not be made to pay for the cost-of-living crisis. It will be a key event in the fight for cost of living grants, to end all cuts on campus and for free education.
Register to get updates by visiting the Socialist Students website.
