Anyone who read my previous blogs (here and here) will be aware of my deep concerns that the actions of the current NUS leadership in relation to student debt and funding are leading students towards another defeat.

These concerns were amplified when I attended the NUS event ‘10 Years After Dearing: The Future for Higher Education’ last Thursday. The Dearing report was set up to recommend the introduction of tuition fees, which it did. NUS should have used this event to explain clearly what the negative impact of soaring student debt has been and will continue to be in the future.

NUS could have used it as opportunity to arm incoming student officers with the arguments they will need to campaign on campus and to shape the debate as we approach the next review, due to report to Parliament in 2009. Instead, no case was made by NUS against student debt and for increased government investment in higher education at an event that primarily served to provide a platform for those advocating even higher fees.

For example, keynote speaker Hilary Benn described the introduction of top-up fees as progressive and a success. Later that evening, when challenged about tuition fees on BBC’s Question Time, Benn was able to point to the fact that he had been discussing the issue with the NUS at a conference that day to give credence to his case that fees were progressive, before repeating his earlier claim that ‘as a result (of fees) we now have a higher number of people going into higher education than has ever been the case before’.

The same message continued throughout the day, Theresa Rees, a key architect of student fees in Wales defended at length the principle that students should pay more for studying, and Conservative shadow education secretary David Willetts predictably supported the Government on top-up fees.

Despite the fact that the government only won the vote on top-up fees by a majority of 5 in the face of a huge back bench rebellion, only one speaker at NUS’ event admitted to opposing top-up fees, and only then in passing as he had actually been invited to discuss the Bologna process.

Almost amazingly despite the fact that, as of last week, fees have been entirely rolled back in Scotland, nobody from Scotland was found to address the conference. NUS Vice President Education, Wes Streeting even hinted at support for the introduction of a graduate tax! As it stands NUS is not even trying to win the argument as the government prepares for its higher education funding review. NUS must change direction fast or students will be facing another defeat.

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