A Shopping List

So, there is a National Day of Action next week. It is, as usual, demanding a shopping list, which I will proceed to critique in order.

1. NO FULL FEES: Over 60 undergraduate degrees now cost over $100, 000. Universities can now offer unlimited full-fee places. We demand that the government abolish this inequitable, user-pays system in favor of more accessible education.

Full fees are an important part of the income of Australian universities. To take it away without replacing it with adequate commonwealth funding is ridiculous. Besides, the government is already phasing these out and universities are already moving into a more defensive stance. Has anyone seen the size of lectures lately?

2. SCRAP VSU: Hundreds of vital student services have been destroyed or at risk because of anti-student organization legislation. Make sure that you have a voice, and that your campus is more than a degree factory – demand the Government scrap Voluntary Student Unionism.

While I'm not a big fan of VSU, I don't think that the anti-VSU campaign has been built well. The average student isn't seeing their troubles tying into VSU - they probably don't use any of these services anyway. Student services are designed to help the disadvantaged which makes them, more or less by definition, 'unpopular'. (By this I mean they appeal to a small 'market' of students)

3. DECREASE HECS: Australian students now pay the second highest fees in the OECD after the 2007 25% increase. Students graduate with crippling levels of debt, up by 1100% since the 1990s. We demand that the government reduce HECS to more equitable levels.

Good luck.

4. END STUDENT POVERTY: 1 in 8 students miss a meal regularly because of lack of money. 1 in 2 students report that their studies are adversely affected by financial stress, and over a third of students work more than twenty hours a week. We demand that the government make Youth Allowance, AusStudy and Abstudy fair and accessible.

This is a good point. Unfortunately, NUS leaves the best till last where it can be ignored easily. It is also unlikely to be successful, given that the government isn't exactly showering education and youth with money right now. Still, I suppose it is good to raise the point.

The shopping list protest model of student activism continues to disappoint. The only issue here that really deserves a protest might be student poverty, but the rest deserve more careful and considered lobby work. Perhaps it is because by the time a student ends up in a position of power in NUS they're so old and disconnected from the average student that they really have no idea who it is they're supposed to be representing.