BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN: UPDATES FROM A STUDENT DIVESTMENT CAMPAIGNER

By Sophie Ciurlik-Rittenbaum

I’m a student and divestment campaigner at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Halfway through my third year and, still pushing this campaign through, I think it’s time for an update.

Continue Reading

UNITED IN THE FACE OF CRISIS – THE STUDENT LEFT NETWORK

By Bradley Allsop

Make no mistake – higher education in the UK is in crisis. After decades of uncertain policy and three successive Tory-led governments with a clear desire to marketise and corporatise our campuses, we’re left with a generation burdened with debt, with an explosion in mental health issues among students, with universities bereft of democracy and increasingly fuelled by precarious labour, with Students’ Unions that are often little more than marketing arms of their universities, and with continuing inequalities in educational attainment. The passionate learning, debate and inquiry that should be the soul of education has become little more than a thin veneer pasted over profiteering and corporate-style expansion.

Continue Reading

ELITISM REFUSES TO DIE – THE UNIVERSITY FUNDING PROBLEM

1

by Robyn Banks

Last month, Freddie DeBoer wrote about the failure of the university system in the United States to equally fund different institutions across the country. Looking specifically at Connecticut, DeBoer shows how Yale, one of the prestigious Ivy League universities, fuels social inequality by receiving public funds as well as other sources for revenue whilst other, more accessible community colleges are “cut to the bone”.

Continue Reading