It’s nearly three years since the huge student protests against the rise in tuition fees in England to £9,000 a year. From the outside looking in, it may look as though the student movement has calmed and is resigned to the idea of paying more than ever for the privilege of going to university. Nothing could be further from the truth. What has changed, however, is the focus on fees.
For students, being short on cash is an all too familiar feeling. What with the rent, bus pass, society fees, and, in the case of Labour Students, getting to all those by-elections, it’s not surprising to hear that more and more students are taking on ‘high risk debt’.
While some factions of the student movement remain focused on the idea of free education and fighting the fees, Labour Students have recognised that, while high fees are bad, it is actually not fees that put prospective students off higher education, but rather the cost of living. A student applying for university from a lower socioeconomic background needs a bursary to be able to pay the rent and the supermarket bill, not a fee waiver to knock a grand off a future debt. Realistically, what’s the difference between £40,000 of debt and £37,000?
Sadly, one of the few groups who do recognise that it is the cost of living and not future debt which is most damaging for students are the payday loans companies. As the cost of living rises and loans, grants and bursaries do not rise in line with this, more and more students become increasingly dependent on risky forms debt. NUS commissioned a huge research project last year called The Pound in your Pocket which highlighted the growing failings of the current student finance system.
As more students are being drawn towards ‘high risk debt’, namely borrowing money from payday loans companies, I am really proud that Labour Students have decided to make this its priority campaign for the year. These companies are targeting some of the most vulnerable people in society and they should be named and shamed for doing so.
Some payday lenders have specifically targeted students and made misleading or inaccurate claims about the support available. In January 2012, Wonga were forced into the media spotlight after it was revealed that what they were framing as an alternative to a student loan carried with it a 4,214 per cent annual rate of interest. It is loans such as these which lead to students dropping out of education.
Some of you may be thinking, well what can Labour Students do to stop this? Surely a bunch of students can’t actually change anything? Anyone who remembers the countless living wage campaigns run by Labour Students up and down the country for the last couple of years will be able to tell you that we are trained and effective campaigners, and this was shown by the many successes of the campaign.
There are varying levels of campaigning that Labour Students clubs will be using to make our campuses loan shark free. First are the more traditional routes of having a stall outside the union where we can hand out information leaflets, get people to sign a petition and more generally raise awareness of the situation amongst the student body. The campaign can be really visual and creative; making a video where students share their experiences of using a payday loan could be a really powerful way of spreading the message that these companies should be avoided. Once this is done, Labour Students can submit policy to student council or assemblies to ban the advertising of legal loan shark companies anywhere in the students’ union, and to mandate the sabbatical officers to lobby the university for them to do the same thing.
As well as raising awareness of the dangers of payday loan companies, it is necessary to make students aware of the other options available. Labour Students will work with trade unions and credit unions to help make it clear to students that there are safe options out there if you’re in financial difficulty. On top of this, most universities have various hardship funds available to students in financial difficulties, and many students’ unions have an advice centre which give out free and impartial advice to students. We need to shout about these! There is always a better option than going to a payday loans company.
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Grace Skelton is general secretary of Manchester University Students’ Union and Labour Students’ National Policy Forum re. She tweets @GraceSkelton