NUS Scotland President Sai Shraddha S. Viswanathan: ‘Students deserve better than to be forgotten.’
The National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland has responded with disappointment to the Scottish Government’s budget published Wednesday, which revealed real terms cuts to the budgets for Colleges, Universities, and student support.
Commenting, NUS Scotland President Sai Shraddha S. Viswanathan said:
“Students are being treated as an afterthought in this budget. Despite rhetoric of record education funding, in real terms universities have seen a 0.7% cut and colleges a 1.4% cut.
Education is a value in itself; it enriches lives and society, but in purely economic terms it also pays for itself - every £1 of public money invested in the education sector sees £14 in return to the economy. Year after year of underfunding post-school education is short-sighted and is causing real damage.
Colleges as cornerstones of working-class communities are key to eradicating poverty but are millions of pounds short of what they need to just get by. Universities, similarly, are being forced through a lack of public investment into an unsustainable and overly marketised model in which international students bear far too high a burden.
And despite an environment in which 34% of students are struggling to pay rent and a fifth are missing lectures due to the cost of travel, promises to keep student support in line with the real living wage have been broken. Wednesday’s budget revealed a real term cut of 3.2% to student support meaning the poorest students will receive £570 less than it costs to survive.
Politicians should be aware that when it comes to election time students won’t support them if they don’t support us and bring robust, positive changes to the table - we deserve better than to be forgotten.”
