Under capitalism, starvation, war, poverty and environmental destruction blight the lives of millions the world over. At the same time the enormous wealth, resources and human talent that exists in the world is squandered.

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Last July, the House of Lords voted through the bill introducing top-up fees in higher education, after this same bill narrowly escaped defeat in the Commons the March before. This bill is due to become law in September 2006, and will involve full-time undergraduates paying up to £3,000 extra each year, supposedly to help universities to meet their current budget deficits, caused by years of under-funding. New Labour’s proposals will not solve the funding crisis in higher education. Rather it is a step towards privatisation, along American lines.

One of the starkest examples of how the quality of education is not improved by fees is the number of university departments closing. For example, management at Swansea has plans to close chemistry, philosophy, development studies, sociology and anthropology, which are hardly unimportant subjects! With the introduction of top-up fees, there will be even more financial pressure on university managements to close subjects that need more labs, books and teaching time. They will struggle to find private finance.

At the same time, students in the more popular subjects are finding themselves overcrowded and under-resourced. When Sussex University was founded in the 1960’s, it had Oxbridge-style weekly small-group tutorials, but now students are finding themselves in seminars of over 50 just a few times per term! Such developments are made worse by the casualisation of teaching in higher education, as university managers try to provide teaching on the cheap.

This is all part of a push to privatise higher education. Management, like the rector of Imperial College, Sir Richard Sykes, wants to charge over £10,000 in top-up fees – the full cost of a degree – to those students who ‘can afford it’. But what about the majority of students who can’t? Oxford University’s prestigious new Said business school was largely funded by a dealer in arms and torture equipment, prompting protests about the use of blood money.

Even when ‘reputable’ businesses offer funding to universities, they do not do so out of love for academia! While we would support the right of everybody to Higher Education if they want it, there is no point if all they receive is training for low-paid work. Profit-hungry capitalists see higher education as a way of getting the state to subsidise their training and recruitment, rather than as a way of passing on humanity’s achievements to the next generation. Universities run for profit are likely to see standards drop. Suggestions like Blair’s to extend the use of foundation degrees – which were originally designed as a way of helping mature and foreign students into UK degrees – are merely a way to make universities cover for inadequacies earlier on in the education system.

It is clear that school and college students are over-tested for political reasons and that this affects their education. The recent introduction of AS levels has heaped stress onto sixth-formers, particularly those applying for university places, and made them inadequately prepared for the demands of a three- or four-year degree as opposed to a yearly cycle of standardised exams.

Outside of their academic work, students still face massive personal difficulties. A recent survey showed that more than one third of students live on under £40 per week after accommodation costs are taken into account. Working-class students are discouraged from applying to university due to debts, and are more likely to drop out. Welfare provision for students faces cuts along with everything else on campuses, with the attendant increase in feelings of isolation and alienation amongst students.

Vice chancellors recently received a massive pay rise, and all receive over £100,000, putting their standard of living far away from the majority of workers and students. This makes them identify more with business interests than with those who suffer from having their education sold off. We call for universities to be run democratically by committees of lecturers, workers and students, and for an end to the special financial privileges for bureaucrats.

Students and trade unionists are not taking these attacks lying down. The Association of University Teachers (AUT) went on strike last year, supported by the National Union of Students (NUS), and tens of thousands of students demonstrated against top-up fees in London. Last summer, the National Association of Teachers in Higher and Further Education (NATFHE) took action to defend nearly 400 jobs threatened at London Metropolitan University. It is likely that these disputes and others will continue over the year. The NUS needs a national strategy to beat cuts, closures and fees, which need to mobilise the mass of students and work with the trade unions to be successful.

Socialist Students is fighting for a publicly-funded system of education at all levels. Military spending, fat cat salaries, and profits of the main monopolies should be spent on public services and education. Join us in this fight.

Thomas House – Sussex Socialist Students