We will be returning to campus on 8 March!

However, the fight for justice is not over. Yesterday, Amelia and Lizzy spoke to NUS Presidents Larissa and Hilary to express the needs and worries of Small and Specialist University Students.  

They presented these particular worries:

• Arts Unis can’t mitigate as easily and do not have the same funds as Exeter (Russell Groups). They have to make financial decisions like not refund rent to keep facilities open over summer. However, it’s still unfair on our students that our University has to make these decisions.
• Smaller Universities do not have the funds to give students tuition fee refunds, even when they deserve at least 25% back.
• The Government are not addressing smaller universities at all. They’ve made no effort to help our students, considering they are the most impacted.
• Arts Uni students have no facilities and they literally cannot do their degree without them.  
• Students can’t spend thousands of pounds buying this equipment.  
• Our students now have a skills gap after missing out on facilities usage. This means they may have to spend more money on a Masters to ensure they have the skills.
• Graduate prospects and employability skills are impacted by the lack of a quality portfolio.
• Digital hardship doesn’t just mean without a laptop, but without thousands of pounds worth of a laptop that is powerful to run gaming, architecture, and other software. It also doesn’t cover the industry kit that our students have been left without.
• Our first-year communities barely even know their course mates. They have spent a year learning nothing and will return to university as if they have just started.

The NUS Presidents were lovely and wanted to create a united response, which is a win for us! They loved #EaseTheFees Instagram page and wanted to continue the lived experiences movement on this.  

• We need students to send us videos (30 seconds or less) of them stressing how being without the facilities has affected them.  
• We need students to keep using the Instagram account.

We are now in regular conversations with the NUS presidents and the Smaller Universities Presidents. Arts Uni students deserve to feel their feedback is heard and acted upon.