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NW Education, Training & Development

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Education & Professional Development

Birmingham ICC 2001

Left-Wing Education?

Students Accommodation

The union has been refusing to mark exam papers and dissertations since April in a tense pay dispute.

It has a six-month mandate from its members to continue the action and members rejected a pay rise offer of between 5pc and 8pc after a vote earlier this year.

Lord Blunkett described the strike action as “beyond belief”, saying it was designed to threaten the life chances of the students involved.

The life peer, who also served as Home Secretary under Blair, questioned whether undergraduate degrees offered value for money for students.

He said he would always be proud of his “part in expanding the university sector”, but said a combination of the pandemic, strike action and costly loan repayments raised the question “are too many people going to university?”

He added: “By going straight from school to the world of work, whether as an apprentice or via technical or vocational training, many young people would benefit from not saddling themselves with onerous student-loan repayments.”

Earlier this week education minister Robert Halfon urged striking university staff to re-enter negotiations with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA).

Many of the students affected by the strikes also had their time at university disrupted by the Covid pandemic, which saw teaching move online and students sent home from halls of residence.

More than 140,000 students have joined a legal action called the Student Group Claim in an effort to reclaim some of their tuition fees. Current A-Level students will be the first to continue paying off their loans into retirement, as the first cohort to take out the Government’s new “Plan 5” loans.

Their debt will not be wiped off until 40 years after they have graduated, as opposed to 30 years, and they will begin paying back their loans earlier, once they are on a salary of £25,000, rather than the previous threshold of £27,295.

The new plan means those who leave university in their mid or late twenties could be left making repayments past the current state pension age of 66.

University tuition fees were introduced in 1998, requiring that all students pay £1,000 a year. From the 2006-2007 academic year, fees rose to £3,000, before hitting £9,000 in 2010.

Tuition fees currently stand at £9,250 for UK students, but can rise as high as £38,000 for international students. Scottish students studying in Scotland are not liable for fees.

Just 27pc of those who began their studies in 2022 are expected to pay off their student loans in full.

Approximately £20bn is loaned to 1.5m students a year and the value of outstanding loans at the end of March 2023 was £206bn, according to figures from the House of Commons.

Courtesy: Madeleine Ross - The Telegraph 15.08.23

Amber's UK Student Housing Annual Report (2024-25)