This week we’re going to be speaking to students to find out what your costs are being a student in Sheffield to help us lobby the university to cover these costs so you don’t have to pay extra on top of tuition fees. 

We're also going to be asking for your help to put pressure on the government to come clean on their plans for universities. The HE Bill has been dropped but many of their reforms could still happen and we want your help to get MP’s to start asking these questions and getting answers from the government on this issue.

Why are we doing this?

Following the HE White Paper the government were due to release an HE Bill. This bill has been shelved. ‘Great stuff’ I hear you say, ‘wasn’t it going to be awful anyway?’ We should be so lucky is the simple answer to this. Many of the reforms we were expecting in the HE Bill can continue without the proper scrutiny or debate that it would have in parliament. Jon has written a blog on this for those of you who want to know a little bit more.

We’ve also been lobbying the University on hidden course costs and the need to support students with the extra costs they face studying in Sheffield. By collecting your hidden costs it can better help us lobby the university to make sure they are covered.

What you can do to get involved:

• Add your hidden course costs to the hidden course cost receipt online (see right!) – we'll be collating the results and delivering them to the University to show them the extent of the hidden course costs students in Sheffield face. – you can also fill out a physical receipt which we will be taking round campus this week – watch out for our giant pound sign!
• Share the receipt on facebook and twitter and use the hash tags #comeclean #nusweekofaction. You can also keep up with what other unions are doing by joining the NUS facebook event.
• Come to our debate on the future of Higher Education – ‘HE: What’s Next?’ at 6.30pm on Tuesday in Arts Tower LT4. Panellists include NUS Vice President Pete Mercer and Sheffield University Pro-Vice Chancellor for Learning and Teaching Professor Paul White.
• On the 18^th April 2012 NUS are holding a Lobby of Parliament to put pressure on MP’s and the government to come clean on HE Funding. If you are interested in attending this debate then come along to our NUS Lobby Briefing at next week to find out more!

This semester we’ve been working hard to secure a fair deal for postgraduate students at the University of Sheffield.

Postgraduates were largely ignored paper and whereas the government has increased undergraduate fees next year to £9000, they didn’t do the same to postgraduate fees. Despite this many postgraduate courses are increasing in price. This is partly because of the huge cuts to higher education funding the government has made. Teaching budgets have been slashed and because of this many universities have had to decrease costs or increase prices. Some universities are using undergraduate fees of £9k to cause their PG fees to creep up to the same level.

Sheffield Students Union thinks this is a bad thing. Postgraduate students have little access to funding and many have to pay their way through their courses by taking out bank loans and working, incurring thousands of pounds of personal debt. In line with our education policy we have been pushing for a postgraduate loan system so PG students are not priced out of PG study. It’s an issue we’ve raised with MP’s from Nick Clegg to Paul Blomfield and with top civil servants from BIS. It is something we’ve stressed to the university we think is an issue of great importance. As well as raising the issue on a nation level we’ve also been working with the university to make sure PG fees next year are kept as low as they can be.

There are so many post graduates at Sheffield (not just undergraduates) and we’ve been working hard to protect their education too.

I write this blog on the evening of the 9^th November just hours after returning from the National Demonstration in London.  After ordering a bigger coach at the last minute, Sheffield Students Union joined students from universities around the country to take part in what was planned to be a peaceful protest in central London against cuts to universities the marketization of higher education.  I’ll try and be brief, but I thought that some students might want to read about what the demonstration was like from someone from the University of Sheffield and what the next steps are as part of the priority campaign you voted for: ‘Protect your education’.

The demonstration itself was on the whole extremely peaceful.  I would estimate somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 students attended.  The atmosphere was really positive, almost a carnival vibe!  Every few minutes a worker from an office window or a builder on some scaffolding would give a big thumbs up to the crowd and be greeted with the cheers of thousands of protestors.  Members of the public viewing the demonstration seemed supportive of students, which I think was in large part down to the non-violent, peaceful attitude of everyone who attended.  On the way back from London, I had two clear feelings about the day.

The first was that the police shot themselves in the foot (with a rubber bullet) over their handling of the demonstration.  The intimidating tactics used by the police in the days leading up to the demonstration were nothing short of irresponsible and immoral.  Given the violence by a minority at last year’s demo and the riots over the summer, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for police to up their presence at protests in central London to protect both those attending the local public.  However, suggesting that police might fire rubber bullets at students - the future generations of our country – who are exercising their democratic right to protest is nothing short of shameful.  I know for a fact that some first year students here at Sheffield were put off attending the demo in fear of being attacked by police.  On a practical level, I also think the police ended up inciting violence rather than suppressing it.  On the march itself the police were intimidating and combative and ended up aggravating a minority of protestors unnecessarily.  Some of the angry chants were directed at the police as a reaction to their behaviour leading up to and on the day of the demo.

My second feeling following the protest was of immense pride for the students who attended.  In the past year, students have been vilified, patronised and attacked by the government and some 

sections of the media.  A positive national news story with students in the headline is about as hard to find these days as Nick Clegg’s heart.   Everyone I spoke to was expecting a day of violence with smashed up shops and burning police vans.  Instead, we got a peaceful demonstration with a clear message from students: we think what you are doing to education in this country is wrong and will have damaging effects felt for years.  Only students could spend hours on a coach to London and march with smiles on their faces after being ignored so ignorantly by politicians during the past 12 months.  We must maintain the argument that £9,000 fees are wrong, the marketization of higher education will have lasting damaging effects on social mobility, and cuts to EMA will deter thousands of students from poorer backgrounds from entering further education altogether.  Whenever a friend, parent or lecturer tells you that we should accept the changes and move on, tell them this: the moment we stop making our argument, we stop holding our politicians to account; we’ll see the cap on fees lifted altogether and a total free market in higher education that will be almost irreversible.

If you want to be involved in further campaigns at Sheffield Students’ Union, or would like to shape our priority campaign for this year then I’d encourage you to come along to our brand new ‘Ideas Forum’ which will take place for the first time this semester.  There will be three strands of this, ‘Our Students’ Union’, ‘Our Community’ and ‘Our University’.  The latter is a chance for you to have a say on higher education policy and indeed any educational matter at the University of Sheffield, be it a problem with your course or lack of resources in the library.  If you can’t commit the time to take part in these forums, then you should get in touch with the education officer, Jon Narcross.  Jon is very receptive to any idea or complaint (I’m told) and would to hear from you, so please do get in touch at education.officer@shef.ac.uk.

Harry 

On 4^th November Union President Thom Arnold met with Nick Clegg to talk about some of the issues facing students.

A key issue on the agenda was higher education and the reforms of the White Paper and Postgraduate study in particular. Tom pressed Nick on the importance of keeping Postgraduate taught courses affordable in the new era of £9000 fees and pressed him on the government introducing post-graduate taught loans.

Tom also raised the issue of access in the new allocation system. The new free market in places for students with AAB is a big threat to our universities, risking the creation of a two-tier system with elite universities at the top and others struggling to recruit students at the bottom. Tom also raised the issue of widening participation and that the new admission policy disproportionately affects people from poorer backgrounds.

The Students’ Union meets regularly with MP’s from Sheffield and always make sure that the issues that are important to you are raised. We will be meeting again with Nick after Christmas and will make sure that your voices are heard at a national level!

Last year was a big year for universities as students fought to protect higher education. The campaign against the government’s plans to increase tuition fees was huge. Students’ Unions up and down the country lobbied, campaigned and took part in the biggest student demonstration in many years, protesting against the move and in the end we were only defeated by a handful of votes in parliament last November.

This year the campaign is continuing the fight to protect our university education, defending the principle of higher education as a social good, and something worthy of government investment which should be open to all regardless of wealth or background. This year it’s about more than higher fees. We lost that vote but there are other fights still to be won.

The government’s damaging Higher Education White Paper paves the way for private universities, driven by profit at the expense of student experience, the creation of a market in the system where students choose what and where to study based on affordability not their own ability. This isn’t what university should be about.

This year we are going to be focusing on several key areas locally and nationally;

• Post-graduate Taught Fees – protecting access to PGT courses in the wake of cuts to government funding
• Calling on the government to halt the White Paper proposals
• Protecting your student experience from cuts to funding
• Lobbying for student support that puts money in your pocket!