Cheltenham Green Party have written this week to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire. Students are facing an economic crisis as well as a health and climate crisis – part-time student jobs are far more likely to disappear during lockdown, and bursaries and grant support have been cut to the point of vanishment over the past few years.
It is time to take urgent action to help our next generation, and stop them from falling into deep and irreversible uncertainty.
================================================================9th January 2021
RE: Partial accommodation and tuition fee refunds for students.
Dear Vice-Chancellor Stephen Marston,
After the Prime Minister’s statement regarding a third national lockdown on Monday 4th January and with a subsequent press conference on Tuesday 5th January, we are writing to you to raise our urgent concerns about the welfare of University of Gloucestershire students.
While Cheltenham Green Party acknowledges and respects the University’s sovereignty, it is vital, and feel it is only right, to protect the interests of our student constituents and future generations.
During Monday’s announcement, the Prime Minister failed to utter a single word in acknowledgment of the deep uncertainty and economic impact being presently faced by university students. That despite the fact over 2 million students live in England and Wales and are suffering and curtailed, yet again, due to tightened restrictions.
With another national lockdown in place, students are being discouraged from returning to their term-time addresses if they have not already done so. Furthermore, a proportion of students’ accommodation fees are used for running services and facilities they are no longer able to access, such as the gyms, social events, cafes and bars at Pittville Student Village. To expect University of Gloucestershire students to pay full fees for accommodation they cannot live in, and services they cannot use, is unreasonable and unjust.
Covid restrictions have removed many, if not all, practical elements to several courses. Laboratories have been closed off, field trips have been cancelled, and overseas fieldwork and work experience opportunities have disappeared. Despite the utmost effort of lecturers, no form of online learning can adequately replicate the development of practical skills so many students rely on for future careers. Burdening students with tuition fees is already an immoral policy, but forcing students to pay upwards of £9,250 for an experience falling so far short of expectations is even more so, especially since that experience is one metric used to justify fees and the marketisation of higher education in the first place.
These students made the choice to apply for a place at the University of Gloucestershire based on the unique range of services and amenities that they are now missing out on. The University is profiting from their loss of opportunity and their disappointment. It is not a
fit start in life for any person, let alone anyone who has trusted you and your staff to guide them into their adulthood. You have an opportunity to provide the support that they deserve.
Mr Marston, we are urging you to initiate negotiations with your students concerning partial refunds for tuition and for accommodation costs. It is unjust for the University to profit from its students while these same students are legally prohibited from returning to term-time addresses without extenuating circumstances, are having a learning experience that does not reflect what they were sold and facing job shortages as a result of the pandemic.
We are also urging you to join your colleagues at Universities UK in lobbying the Department of Education for financial support for our higher education institutions. Without centralised funding, the UK’s world-leading universities face financial collapse in the very near future, creating damage that may take years to repair.
You have the platform to persuade our Government to provide the funding packages that would rescue our universities from economic failure and safeguard the UK’s higher education and research for the future.
Thank you for taking time to read our letter. We look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely,
Cheltenham Green Party