The government has just announced an above inflation increase to student maintenance and that home undergraduate university students’ tuition fees will increase with inflation.
NUS has celebrated the increase in maintenance loans, which has come as the result of years of campaigning by student activists.
This follows an earlier survey by NUS that found that student foodbank use has doubled since 2022, with 14% of students have used foodbanks. Additionally, it found that 55% of students have cut back on food because they could not afford to eat, and 13% of students have experienced homelessness.
However, the union have also pointed out that, as the maintenance loans are means-tested – without the introduction of grants this will contribute to an even higher burden of debt for the poorest students.
Commenting, NUS Vice President Higher Education, Alex Stanley, said:
“Higher education is in crisis right now. Students are being asked to foot the bill to literally keep the lights and heating on in their uni buildings and prevent their courses from closing down. This is – and can only ever be – a sticking plaster. Universities cannot continue to be funded by an ever-increasing burden of debt on students.
“We do welcome the increase in maintenance loans. This money will make a real difference to the poorest students, and is a testament to the hard work of student campaigners over the past three years: right now, students are left with 50p per week to live on after rent and bills.
“We do now need an urgent review and reform of the way that higher education and our students are funded.
“Clearly, the current system is not working. The last fourteen years of intense marketisation have systematically run down the UK’s universities. Students need a review that considers maintenance grants, international student fees and tackling the funding crisis that students and universities have been pushed into.”
Commenting, NUS Vice President Liberation & Equality Saranya Thambirajah said:
“Discrimination is baked into the student loan system at every level: it’s perfectly regressive – and a review of how education and students are funded is crucial to tackle this.
“Firstly, we know that working class students are likely to be the most debt averse: and so an increase to the amount of debt someone accumulates over their student lifetime, while giving more money with one hand, could also serve to put people off even entering higher education in the first place.
“It doesn’t stop on graduation: right now, middle-earning women graduates face higher repayment amounts than higher-earning men, who effectively “tap out” of the system early and do not accumulate as much debt. We then see this multiplied by the gender and race pay gaps. It is fundamentally absurd that those who earn less are ultimately paying more to keep our higher education system afloat.
“If the government is serious about higher education reform, it needs to work out the tensions at the heart of the funding system. This must include a full package of maintenance funding, if we want to avoid a serious student poverty crisis which is already in the making, and a sharpened stratification of HE by class. From tuition fee rates to the repayment system, we need root and branch reform to fix what the 14 years of Tory governments broke beyond recognition and create a higher education system that works for students, universities and colleges.”
