THE Student Assembly Against Austerity’s National Week of Action to stop the sale of student loans to private companies is well under way.
At least 50 campuses are taking part in the national week of action, which will see the biggest wave of opposition to the government’s plans to sell off student loans yet.
Rallies, protests, creative direct action and mass petitioning are sweeping across campuses.
Among the many events this week. the London Metropolitan University Student Assembly Against Austerity held a meeting yesterday afternoon and SOAS Student Assembly Against Austerity, held a rally under the slogan defend the right to resist – hands off our student loans! yesterday evening, from 5pm-7pm in the SOAS JCR, central London.
Today, Sussex University students are holding a stop the privatisation of the student loans public meeting at 4.00pm in UTC Arts C133 Lecture Theatre.
Tomorrow, University of East Anglia students say: ‘Join us in a mass action at 12.30pm on Thursday, 6th February.
‘We will take over the centre of our campus, holding giant red boxes above our heads, symbolizing student debt.’
University of Nottingham Left and Greens in coalition have a full week planned of activities ending with a march on Friday 7th February on the Trent Building of University of Nottingham, University Park Campus to demand the University and Vice Chancellor: Professor David Greenaway, make a public statement in opposition to the sell off.
A London-wide protest is taking place on Friday outside the Government Department for Business Innovations and Skills at 2pm.
Students will be meeting on the steps of SOAS at 12 noon to march down to BIS with students from Bloomsbury campuses.
Fiona Edwards of Student Assembly Against Austerity told News Line: ‘The government’s plans to sell off our student loans to private companies represents a massive attack on millions of people.
‘As was revealed in a secret report for the government, the private debt collectors that are seeking to buy up our debts want to hike up interest rates to maximize their profits.
‘That is why students from more than 50 campuses are uniting together to take action in a coordinated week of protest, rallies and creative direct action to let the government know we will not stand by and let them increase tuition fees through the back door without a massive fight.’
Below is the motion that the NUS National Executive passed in support of the national week of action.
Stop the privatisation of student debt
NUS NEC Believes:
1. Building the movement to stop the government selling off the student loan book to private companies is an urgent priority.
2. George Osborne confirmed during the Autumn Statement in 2013 that the government is going ahead with plans to sell off student loans taken out between 1998-2012. According to Mark Russell, chief executive of the Shareholder Executive, which manages a string of taxpayers’ assets, the student loans will start to be sold off in 2014.
3. In November the government sold off student loans worth £900m to a private debt collector for the bargain basement price of £160m, in a deal which included all the student loans taken out before 1998.
4. There is widespread concern that handing over our student debt to private companies will lead to an increase in the financial burdens placed on students and graduates, as the new owners of the debts hike up interest rates in order to make more profits. These concerns are well placed given the fact that:
•A secret report for the government has revealed, in order to make sure the student loan book is profitable for private companies the cap on interest for repayments would need to be increased or removed all together. This proposal would cause student debt to soar and represents a retrospective hike in tuition fees.
•l The Minister for Universities, David Willetts, made clear to a parliamentary select committee last June that it is very easy for the rate of interest to be hiked up: ‘In the letter that every student gets there are some words to the effect that government reserve the right to change the terms of the loans.’
5. In light of this, David Willetts’ reassurances that the terms and conditions on student loans will not be changed following the privatisation of the student loan book ring hollow.
NUS NEC further believes:
1. The growing movement to stop the sell off of student loans must be built and fully supported.
2. The Student Assembly Against Austerity has called a week of action against the privatisation of student debt from Monday 3 – Friday 7 February 2014.
At the time of writing 45 campuses have signed up to take part in the week of action which will include a broad range of campus based creative actions, protests and petitioning.
On Friday 7 February the week of action will end with a ‘debt in’ outside the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills which is responsible for selling off the loans.
3. An Early Day Motion (Sale of Student Loans 542) has been put down in Parliament to gather political opposition to the plans to privatise student loans with 50 MPs signed up so far.
4. On Budget Day, 19 March, the Student Assembly Against Austerity will be organising a national day of action to stop the sell off of student loans, oppose education cuts and the wider austerity offensive.
NUS NEC Resolves:
1. To support and promote the national week of action to stop the privatisation of student debt which is taking place from Monday 3 – Friday 7 February 2014.
2. Encourage students to lobby their MPs to sign up to Early Day Motion 542 on the ‘Sale of Student Loans’.
3. Support the national day of action on Budget Day, 19 March, called by the Student Assembly Against Austerity to oppose the sell off of student loans, education cuts and the wider austerity offensive.
The national movement to stop the sell off of student loans, which took off with a national day of action in November 2013 involving students from 25 campuses, has grown substantially in two months with twice as many campuses expected to take part in next week’s actions.
An NUS Black Students’ Officer and spokesperson for the Student Assembly Against Austerity, said: ‘The government’s plans to sell off the student loan book represents a massive attack on millions of people.
‘We are clear that privatisation of student debt will lead to higher interest rates and therefore a higher burden of debt will be placed upon graduates.
‘It is essentially a retrospective hike in the cost of tuition fees.
‘A new generation of students are getting active to stop the government in its tracks and the protests happening on campuses across the country next week will be a sign of things to come if the Tories & Lib Dems refuse to drop their disastrous plans to burden us with more debt.’
Marienna Pope-Weidemann, SOAS student and spokesperson for the Student Assembly Against Austerity added: ‘This is a direct attack on public education: handing over the tuition fees they said they needed to fund education, into the hands of private corporations.
‘The sell off of the student loan book will add to the financial burden of millions of graduates already struggling to make ends meet.
‘And the potential for an exploding rate of debt will discourage poorer young people from applying to university in the future.
‘Exploitation and privatisation is the face of austerity on campus – which the student wing of the People’s Assembly is building a movement to resist.’
In a speech to Parliament on 27 June 2013, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, announced the government’s plans to privatise the student loan book.
