Wales - The True Extent of Student Debt Exposed

From the most recent issue of the Socialist.

On Thursday 4 December, members of Bangor Socialist Students organised a 'Wall of Debt'.

Laurence Winch-Furness

Students could estimate how much debt they would be in by the end of their course. Around sixty students participated and the estimates were written on colour coded stickers, with the lowest estimate (0-£5000) being pale pink, whilst the highest (over £20,000) were dark green. Over half of all estimates were green, whilst only a handful were pink.
The highest estimate, at $128,000 (£78,000), came from an American overseas student. Joint second were two law students at £64,000. Only two students were in no debt at all, and one of these was a visitor from Finland, where education is free. Many students in the lower debt bands informed us they had had to save large sums of money before coming to university.
This is an indication of the problems facing students in Wales before top-up fees have been introduced. There is an urgent need for a mass campaign for free education and against all attacks on education in Britain.

Reading materials at Uni

One would think that given the increase in fees paid to universities over the last year that you'd be seeing increasing resources to match this. It doesn't seem to be the case at all, i hear tales of cutbacks happening all over the place, my girlfriend is currently uncertain as to whether she'll be able to do a dissertation or not.
By far the most frustrating thing about university is books. Surely if lecturers are teaching the same or similar courses each year then enough books could be kept in stock for students, rather than as I have experienced many times that you need to read books for an essay and they've all gone. And under-resourcing makes the problem worse as people keep books out for longer than they need becuase they're worried that if they return it they might not be able to get it out again. I remember at college where they key text for the course was loaned out to us for the duration of that module, why couldn't something similar happen at university, instead of putting students into even more debt from having to buy a book that they will use just once.