London students demand tuition fee refund after staff strike

Students at London universities are demanding a refund on their tuition fees because of 14 planned days of strike action by lecturers and staff.

Workers are set to walk out on Thursday, with more action between then and April, in a dispute over pensions.

Lecturers have announced plans for more walkouts stretching into the summer term, which means students also face missing finals. They are demanding a refund of £1,260 per person, with international students, whose fees are higher, to be reimbursed accordingly.

Students at Goldsmiths are the latest to make the demand, following similar moves at King’s College London, City University, Exeter, York, and Bristol.

More than 2,000 people have signed a petition to Goldsmiths warden Patrick Loughrey.

It states: “We, whilst wholeheartedly supporting the tutors’ strike action, join in with the other students’ pleas, and believe we are entitled to have our tuition fees reimbursed for the duration of the strike action.

“We pay £9,000 a year as undergraduates — more as postgraduates. If the university and the senior management team can’t support its staff, it is unreasonable we should still continue to pay the full amount for an educational experience that won’t be provided.”

Strikes are set to take place across 64 universities — including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Edinburgh and Goldsmiths — after talks between the University and College Union (UCU), and Universities UK, which represents universities, broke down. Those joining the action say changes to their pension scheme will make them £10,000 worse off in retirement. UCU general secretary Sally Hunt praised students for putting pressure on the universities. She said a meeting on March 2 will be held to finalise an escalation of the strikes, which could lead to exams not being held.

She said it was “scandalous that universities’ representatives have refused to come back to the negotiating table to try and resolve things before the strikes”. Some universities will “dumb down degrees” if students miss course topics during the strike action, she claimed.

Universities UK said it met UCU more than 35 times in the past year to try to resolve the dispute. It said the union’s only proposal was unaffordable and “would necessitate large cuts to budgets in other areas such as teaching and research, and put many jobs at risk”. It said: “It is up to each individual university to consider any claims they receive from students for compensation.”

Goldsmiths said the pension issues could “only be addressed by constructive dialogue between all parties”, adding: “In the event of strike action we will take all reasonable steps to minimise any disruption to students, and will consider any specific complaints relating to the impact in due course.”

It said the warden was one of only a few vice-chancellors to call for a return to the negotiating table. Any salary withheld from striking staff would be paid into its student hardship fund, it added.