This year an independent review of student funding begins. Students and hardworking families are being failed by this system: students are broke and the funding system broken. This year’s review will consider pushing students’ fees higher. Next year’s students could be priced out and if some University chiefs have their way student debt could double. Nearly 1500 parliamentary candidates signed up to NUS’ pledge to "vote against any increase in fees in the next Parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative." Those candidates received a total of more than 10 million votes and every Liberal Democrat MP elected on 6 May and 3 Conservative MPs had signed up.

Our aim is to play an important role in the student movement, to campaign to try to ensure that cuts do not decrease the quality of the student and educational experience, as well as to resist the prospect of higher fees and increasing privatisation in education.

You can get involved by contacting union-education@kent.ac.uk

For the full briefing as well as our future plans in detail click here 

The outcomes from the spending review and review on tuition fees see students being priced out of university.

The suggesting funding system from the government see the tuition fees triple over the course of months, cuts to core subjects like humanities and the arts, repayment of the loans starting at £21,000 with higher interest rate and for our FE students it see the education maintenance allowance being scrapped.

These recommendations are not progressive and create a market. It sees lower income, the middle earners and middle class families making difficult decisions about their lives- this leaves only 40% of high earning graduates paying back their loan- and sees rest paying larger rates of interest for longer.

We need to show the government, our MP, Canterbury and the University that students will not stand for this and will fight for their education.

Despite the vote passing through parliament it is important to remember that the battle is not lost as the white paper comes out in January and Kent Union will continue to fight for and defend education with its students. 

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