Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser
The vice chancellors have ramped up their offensive on university students and staff this year. More than 2,000 new redundancies have been planned since the start of 2025 alone. This figure will rise even higher in coming weeks, as a number of institutions are yet to confirm the scale of their announced cuts. At several universities the planned redundancies amount to 10% or more of the workforce.
For students, the threat of mass course closures comes on top of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, as well as a tuition fee hike next year that will do nothing to resolve the crisis in higher education.
Socialist Students is serious about fighting to end the uni funding crisis, by mobilising students to demand no course cuts, no job losses, and for free, fully funded education.
Workers in the University and College Union (UCU) have responded to attacks by balloting for strike action in at least a dozen university branches so far. And Unison is currently balloting tens of thousands of its members in higher education. Socialist Students groups will organise for the biggest-possible student attendance at picket lines, and build for solidarity action.
But students should not limit ourselves to an exclusively supporting role in the struggle. We can propose our own initiatives, within which we invite the trade unions on campus to play a leading role. That way we can show that students are serious about fighting and pro-active in our determination to fight shoulder to shoulder with staff. That is the most inspiring kind of solidarity that students can give in this fight for the future of higher education.
For Socialist Students groups, this means putting forward a plan of action that can organise staff, students and working-class people locally in a campaign to fight back as soon as any cuts are announced. We can build for mass meetings, hold protests, organise lobbies of MPs, collect signatures for an open letter or petition – there is no shortage of options.
A plan of activity can bring people together. But what transforms a series of gatherings into an effective movement is a clear political programme of demands to fight for. Socialist Students has launched the Funding Not Fees campaign as a way of putting forward the ideas we think are needed to build such a movement.
Socialist Students says
- No to further fee increases – get organised on campus to fight for free education! Cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
- No cuts and no closures! Build democratic student organisations to link up with campus trade unions and the wider working class to fight for the funding our universities need
- Kick big business off campus! End marketisation of our education. Open up university finances to democratic oversight and control, including by elected students’ representatives and campus trade unions, with the power to terminate all contracts and research tied to war, occupation, profiteering and exploitation, while guaranteeing jobs and funding
- Students need a political voice. Build a new mass workers’ party that will stand up for students and workers and fights for socialist policies
- Fight for socialist change. For democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future
Cardiff Uni – pressure wins £19 million from Welsh government
Aris Prevost, Cardiff Socialist Students
On top of 400 jobs cut at Cardiff Uni, 200 job cuts have been announced at Bangor Uni and 90 at University South Wales. Having previously said that there is no more money, and under popular pressure and protests, the Welsh government has announced £19 million investment into higher education in Wales.
However, this does not mean a final victory. A one-time £19 million cash injection will only partially stem the tide of cuts. Cardiff University alone faces a £30 million deficit. It’s £15 million at Bangor and £20 million at USW (see below). But this additional money will not solve the funding crisis. In fact, it remains unclear where this money will go, and what strings are attached.
We demand an immediate end to all cuts, and that pressure is put on governments in Cardiff and London for adequate funding.
The fightback at Cardiff Uni is clearly working. The uni bosses’ position is growing weaker by the day. A unified student and staff pushback can force the university to halt all cuts.
As part of the fightback, there was a demo organised by music alumni on 22 February, where they played a public concert outside city hall. The concert loudly highlighted the cultural impact that music in Cardiff has. Cardiff has many independent music venues and cultural roots which have been under attack, including the closure of the beloved venue The Moon.
Other events are being planned, especially targeting uni open days as well as organising further marches and rallies.
Moving forward, we need to push for an alternative funding model to fix higher education. It is only by running education as a public good rather than a commodity to be sold that we will be able to end this crisis and save jobs. We need a new workers’ party that fights for free education, fully publicly funded by making the super-rich pay!
Uni South Wales students build cuts resistance
Suzie Matthews
Following in Cardiff University’s controversial footsteps, the University of South Wales (USW) announced on 17 February its plans to axe around 90 jobs, including entire courses.
In response, Rhondda Cynon Taf Socialist Party held a campaign stall in opposition, and student support was immense. Under the hypocritical shadow of a crane building a shiny new block, more than half of the students who passed by stopped to sign the petition.
There was the distinct sense that something ought to be done. Three students left their details to find out more about joining the Socialist Party, one suggested organising a protest. The atmosphere isn’t yet one of anger – though that can change when cuts to specific courses are announced.
We have been campaigning at USW for a while now. Staff and students have told us about cuts to Maths courses and professional services, fearing that what is happening at Cardiff would arrive at their doorsteps. It is difficult to view USW as an institution struggling for money whilst a new building is being thrown up. Students and staff are concerned about where these cuts will fall – many assumed that they will be primarily directed at the arts and humanities.
40% of students at USW are international students, a group that is hideously overcharged. Uni managements have blamed a drop off in international applicants for their budget deficits. But we can’t stand for cuts and job losses, we must fight for higher education fully funded by government.
Brunel Uni – workers strike against cuts
Ryan Leonard, Brunel Socialist Students
Staff at Brunel University were informed in October last year of a planned “significant academic resizing programme”. The plan was to make 130 redundancies of full-time academic staff and 79 profession service staff, a 14% reduction in staffing levels. It goes without saying that students were left in the dark, we were only informed of the university management’s plans by our lecturers.
Lecturers in UCU have announced a calendar of 16 strike days, escalating over a period of six weeks, beginning on 28 February. Socialist Students will be building student support for the strikes.
The vice chancellor of Brunel is Andrew Jones, a Labour councillor. He lists on his LinkedIn page “business planning” and “strategic thinking” as skills he’s gained from his role at Brunel. Just last year the university hired 139 academic staff… incredibly strategic.
For the last five years, Brunel has exploited international students, who can be charged far higher fees, as a source of income and despite being warned consistently over the last two years that the law around student visas would change, senior leadership continued on this path.
Students are rightly frustrated. Some of the people I study with have lost their tutors during their dissertations, which is terrifying. Planned redundancies don’t include the 69 members of the executive team, all earning over £100k. Nor the vice chancellor, earning £267k a year.
Our uni is not the assorted renovations that Brunel has carried out, totalling five times the savings made by sacking staff. Our uni is the educators, the students and the relationships between us. All of which will suffer if Brunel’s redundancy plan goes ahead.
Liverpool Uni – standing in SU elections to fight cuts
Hannah Ponting, Liverpool Socialist Students
After the numerous job cuts announced at universities across the country, lots of us were worried about similar cuts occurring in Liverpool.
The University of Liverpool has followed other unis and enacted a plan of ‘voluntary redundancies’ of staff. However, uni bosses are being extremely vague about the number of job cuts, despite pressure from the UCU for transparency.
This news comes only 17 weeks after the Labour government’s tuition fees hike. Job losses will have a negative impact on students as well as staff, emphasising the importance of uniting Socialist Students work with the demands of the trade unions.
Students Union officer elections are coming up. We are taking this as an opportunity to stand a socialist candidate in order to give a platform to our ideas. I am very proud to be that candidate, and to stand on an anti-cuts platform, aiming to build the Funding Not Fees campaign, as well as amplifying the voices of the uni workers.
In these times of increasing cuts at universities throughout the UK, it is increasingly important to keep socialist ideas visible on our campuses and to build the Funding Not Fees campaign, as part of our work as Socialist Students.
Coventry Uni bosses threaten ‘fire and rehire’
Frank Hammond, Coventry Socialist Students
Over 90 full-time staff members are set to be cut at Coventry University, with a further 200 staff re-enrolled under a subsidiary called Peoples Future Limited (PFL). A familiar fire-and-rehire fiasco is underway with whole courses set to be terminated along with lecturers’ jobs.
Uni bosses argue the recent tuition fees rise will still not cover the uplift of National Insurance contribution rates, and that their contributions to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme is ‘unaffordable’. The bosses’ solution? Fire and rehire to remove staff from the scheme.
It should be noted that vice chancellor and CEO of Coventry University, John Latham, was reported to have received an £80,768 bonus on top of his £312,617 salary during the financial year ending March 2023. Furthermore, only five days after this decision was announced in December 2024, Latham was named as a non-executive director of the Labour government’s Department for Business and Trade.
A lecturer within the university has personally expressed to me a fear for their living situation as a result of the unacceptable decision; not originally from the UK and coming from a country that’s fought a war throughout the last few years, redundancy is one of the scariest words to throw around. Workers are once again being exploited, threatened and neglected. And yet, we receive nothing but silence or excuses from the ones in charge.
Opposing the decision, Coventry Socialist Students has called a public meeting, working to spread the word to students, lecturers and trade unionists alike, to expose the unjust cuts and plan our fightback. It will hear from a UCU trade union rep. We want to open a discussion of what can be done and ultimately making a shout to the bosses that this decision is not being accepted.
Hard-working people are currently at risk of being punished with seemingly no remorse from the staff at the top. Students kicking up a fuss is a warning to the higher-ups as we continue building the Funding nor Fees campaign.
Unions fighting back
Bea Gardner, UCU member
A debate is taking place within the main Higher Education (HE) unions about the best strategy to defend members’ jobs and conditions, given the onslaught of cuts and the dire state of university finances.
The University and College Union (UCU) is leading a fightback against redundancies at the local level, with strike mandates in place, or ballots under way at tens of UCU branches. At the UK-wide level, the union is split between those on the left who want to use the current pay dispute as a vehicle for a sector-wide struggle, and the supporters of general secretary Jo Grady who have already delayed a ballot of the membership on this issue, and are pushing to retain a localised response.
Meanwhile, Unison is launching a ballot of its HE members across a number of universities over pay. The recent Unison HE conference passed a series of motions supporting the linking of the political and industrial struggles and campaigning for the full funding needed.
Socialist Party members in both unions are arguing for a fighting lead to be given at every level of the union – electing fighting candidates in the current union elections is key. A serious UK-wide campaign for full funding is needed, and that needs to be fought for within the unions. Individual branches can push back against cuts and redundancies, and that struggle would be strengthened through greater coordination between branches in dispute, as well as between the unions.
