UCL rent strikers demand 40% cut - battle against inequality

[Tony Gosling]

The UCL rent strikes are part of a far bigger battle against inequality

<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.theguardian.com/profile/michael-chessum>Michael 
Chessum
This government wants to normalise a more unequal 
society. That’s why this campaign, and others like it, are so vital
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/rent-strikes-ucl-students-deepen-inequality#img-1>
Housing protest, London January 2016
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/rent-strikes-ucl-students-deepen-inequality#img-1>
  A protest against the government’s housing and 
planning bill, January 2016: ‘If current 
inequality trends continue, most people in this 
generation will pay a majority of their income in 
rent for their whole lives.’ Photograph: Niklas Halle'n/AFP/Getty Images

Monday 7 March 2016 15.05 GMTLast modified on Monday 7 March 201615.07 GMT
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/rent-strikes-ucl-students-deepen-inequality

“Some people simply cannot afford to live in 
London, and that is a fact of life.” 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/ucl-rent-strike-university-official-tells-students-it-is-a-fact-of-life-some-people-cant-afford-to-a6909736.html>These 
are words that will haunt the public affairs 
department of University College London for 
years. They were uttered by Andrew Grainger, 
UCL’s director of estates, in a meeting with 
representatives of a rent strike that is 
currently taking place in response to the 
spiralling cost of student accommodation. Rent 
strikes are becoming a theme of campus life at 
UCL, with last year’s campaign ending up with 
a<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ucl-students-awarded-nearly-300000-in-rent-row-over-poor-living-conditions-a3128166.html> 
substantial payout for students following a 
dispute over poor living conditions.

Grainger’s remarks in the small meeting are by 
all accounts a stunning admission, but they 
reflect a reality that many of his students would 
recognise. Since 2009-10, the average rent at a 
UCL hall of residence has risen by 56%. At its 
largest residence, Ramsay Hall, 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/accommodation/residences/halls/ramsay-hall>a 
catered room will now cost you £206.29 per week, 
leaving a student with access to the minimum 
student loan a weekly income of minus £3.08 after 
paying rent. After almost an hour of being 
confronted with the realities (one student spoke 
of how she had to commute to Essex to work every 
weekend in order to pay her rent), Grainger told 
the blunt truth: with the funding system as it 
is, maybe you shouldn’t study here.
[]



London students refuse to pay rent and demand 40% cut


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In an era of seemingly limitless austerity, we 
have become desensitised to relatively basic 
things being put beyond the reach of ordinary 
people. Cuts to services and hikes in user 
contributions are often sold as being as handed 
down and unavoidable – but at UCL, as elsewhere, 
this is often not the case. UCL has done 
extremely well out of the Conservatives’ higher 
education reforms, which have centralised funding 
in favour of research-intensive, prestigious 
universities. Its accommodation system produces a 
large surplus – around 45% according to 
campaigners – 
and<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/staff/staff-news/0615/09062015-provostsviewuniversityfinances> 
it makes a significant overall surplus as an institution.

With some help from blunders such as Grainger’s, 
what the UCL rent strike is exposing is in many 
ways the core deception of the government’s 
regime of fee hikes and market competition: that 
privatisation won’t hinder working-class 
students’ access to higher education. Without the 
Liberal Democrats in government to dilute it, 
that privatising agenda is becoming entrenched. 
Along with further access for private providers 
and fee rises linked to performance in a new 
“teaching excellence framework”, the 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/higher-education-teaching-excellence-social-mobility-and-student-choice>reforms 
tabled by higher education minister 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/may/12/jo-johnson-appointed-universities-and-science-minister>Jo 
Johnson in the autumn even include exempting 
universities from 
the<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.theguardian.com/politics/freedomofinformation>Freedom 
of Information Act, declassifying them as public 
sector institutions for the purposes of scrutiny.

What reforms like these have done is create and 
empower a layer of managers who view themselves 
not as public servants or custodians, but as 
senior managers in private sector businesses. The 
leaders of most universities are now 
overwhelmingly driven by a need to compete: to 
attract lucrative international and postgraduate 
students, often at the expense of facilities and 
teaching quality; and to drive up revenues, even 
if this means driving away poorer students. The 
fact that UCL charges such extortionate rents is 
an active choice, but it is a choice that seems 
natural if one of your main motivation is the 
need to make a profit rather than to provide affordable housing.

The leaders of most universities are now 
overwhelmingly driven by a need to compete

For ease of narrative, it can be tempting to view 
the undermining of higher education as a public 
service – and the rocketing debts, tuition fees 
and housing costs associated with it – as an 
attack on young people, a growing gap between 
generations. That is certainly true to some 
extent: young people are being denied access to 
opportunities – universities, youth centres, 
training, employment – that the current political 
elite received for free, often with grants.

But in reality, limits on opportunity and attacks 
on young people are being driven by a broader 
process – a drive to shrink the state and remould 
social expectations to meet the realities of an 
increasingly unequal society. This generation is 
not being asked pay extortionate rents just at 
university: if current inequality trends 
continue, 
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jan/20/is-inequality-an-unavoidable-fact-of-life-video>most 
will pay a majority of their income in rent for their whole lives.

The goal of the current political establishment – 
unsustainable and mad as it sounds – is to make 
this situation seem normal. The vital task of 
campaigns such as the UCL rent strike is to alter 
the balance of forces within the existing system 
– and to give hope to others that an alternative is possible.

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