Last month, the government confirmed that they will increase student maintenance loans by a measly 2.8%. Students who receive the maximum amount of finance are set to receive £9,978 in 2023/24. This is £1,583 less than they would receive if these loans were tied to inflation.
The price of student staples, meanwhile, such as tomato pasta with a sprinkle of cheese on top, has skyrocketed by 54% in the past year.
This is an utter insult. If students were workers, they’d undoubtedly be joining the hundreds of thousands who are striking to defend their pay and conditions.
In other words, the Tories are willingly allowing millions of university students – along with the rest of the working class – to slip into deprivation; leaving students and workers alike to the mercy of soaring prices and greedy landlords.
Grim reality
Students have struggled to make ends meet for some time now. This is an unprecedented real-terms cut to student maintenance loans, however.
Since 2016, relative to living costs, students have seen their maintenance loans cut by 15%. This has not been a gradual reduction either, but sudden and sharp. In real terms, across the current academic year and next, maintenance loans will be cut by 11%.
This means that we are living through the biggest drop in student living standards in a generation.
Already, students have been pushed to the brink. A recent study by the National Union of Students revealed that one-third of students are left with only £50 per month after accounting for rent and bills. Shockingly, one-in-ten students are now relying on food banks.
Out of desperation, a growing number of students are even turning to prostitution to make ends meet.
This is the grim reality of student life under capitalism. And it is only going to get worse.
Forking out
A government report has stated that students from the poorest households – without family income to fall back on – will be the worst affected.
But the crisis cuts so deep that even students from ‘higher income’ households will be affected.
The ‘income threshold’ – which determines whether a student receives a reduced maintenance loan – has been lowered. This means more parents will have to fork-out more money to help with their children’s living costs while at university.
In many instances, however, that support simply doesn’t exist, as the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is whittled away on all sides: by rampant inflation; the bosses’ attacks on pay and conditions; the Tories’ austerity and cuts; and the bankers’ rising interest rates.
In short, the marketisation of education – and the wider crisis of capitalism – is dragging students, their families, and the whole higher education system over a cliff. Meanwhile, fat-cat employers and investors are getting rich.
Unite and fight
This onslaught on students’ living standards will deepen the radicalisation amongst young people that we are already witnessing.
This will be compounded by the fact many students are joining the workforce to make ends meet. Students commonly find part-time jobs in some of the most exploited and precarious sectors – namely retail, hospitality, and online tutoring.
These attacks are taking place against the backdrop of the long-standing dispute between university employers and staff.
After years of battling with higher education bosses, UCU members are continuing their fight for decent pay and pensions, with 18 days of strike action taking place over February and March.
Their struggle for better working conditions is tied to our struggle for better learning conditions. Students and staff share the same enemy: the marketisation of education, driven by capitalism’s insatiable drive for profit.
Crucially, it is these workers who have the ability to bring campuses to a standstill, and show university management who really holds the power. Only by linking-up with the organised working class can students achieve their demands.
Ultimately, the crisis in education reflects the crisis of capitalism – a system in senile decay. The basis for common struggle lies in the fight against capitalism.
Kick out capitalism!
The Marxist Student Federation therefore calls on students to join UCU members on the picket lines – to support our lecturers’ demands, whilst also raising our own demands: for the abolition of tuition fees, and for maintenance grants to be reintroduced, tied to inflation.
Fat-cat managers have proven incapable of running our universities. We must therefore fight for our universities to be placed under the democratic control of staff and students.
To ensure that universities are properly funded, so that students and staff can pursue their work and studies in comfort, we must expropriate the big banks and major monopolies, and put their idle riches to good use.
The need for revolution has never been more clear. Students face skyrocketing rents, soaring energy bills, eye-watering food prices, a growing mental health crisis, and the highest tuition fees on record.
This is the best capitalism has to offer. Only the socialist transformation of society can remedy these ills.
We say:
- Students and workers unite and fight!
- For mass coordinated action to topple the Tories!
- Kick capitalism out of our universities!
- Fight for free education through expropriation!
