Student protestors have won the battle in Cambridge to save student bursaries, with the University giving into their demands after an intense week of petitions, protests camps and rallies.
Proposals to slash bursaries from the current £3,500 a year to £1,625 were made by a University Working Group, with a concession of £3,000 per year fee waivers on £9,000 fees.
However, Cambridge University Student Union, and the campaign group Cambridge Defend Education, claimed that bursaries have a greater positive impact for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and that fee waivers, whilst helpful, would lack concrete benefits for those struggling to fund their university expenditures.
Cambridge academics were due to vote upon the fee proposals yesterday in a referendum called a ‘Grace’. CUSU had put forward an amendment to the motion mandating that, “the University continues to provide maintenance bursaries of at least the present levels”.
Despite the fact that 140 academics, over five times the number needed to assure a vote on the amendment, signed the paper, the Vice Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz stated last Wednesday that he deemed the amendment “inadmissible as being in substance and effect incompatible with the main purpose of the Grace.”
By over-ruling the democratic process of the Grace, the Vice Chancellor caused some students and academics to call into question the legitimacy of the referendum. Many of these voiced their anger about the decision by signing petitions against it.
Archy de Berker, Pembroke Junior Parlour President, called it, “reprehensible wherever you stand on the fees, cuts, bursaries debate. This represents a violation of the founding principles of the University, and flies in the face of its stated aim of promoting the interests and views of the academics and students that make this University great.”
Professor Nick Gay, a member of the University Council, the body with the responsibility for setting tuition fees and bursary levels said at the time, “I’m surprised the Vice Chancellor has made this decision. I do not think the grace as it stands offers a real choice.
“The amendments would…send a clear message that high fees are not the way forward for HE and mandate the Council on the balance of fee waivers and bursaries.”
On the other hand, another member of the University Council, Dr. Rachel Padman, stated, “I support the decision…The current Grace does not pre-empt anything.”
After criticisms of the Vice Chancellor’s decision, and prolonged protests, including a two day camp-out of over 40 students on the lawn of Senate House and a demonstration by over 800 people on Thursday, the University announced that they intended to keep the bursaries.
A press release from the University on Monday stated that their decision was, “to enhance the present Cambridge Bursary Scheme which offers support of up to £3,500 each year. The Scheme will offer individual students the choice of taking their Cambridge bursary as a fee waiver or a cash sum.”
“This package will ensure that, for those students from lower income households, it is no more expensive to study at Cambridge than at other UK universities. In particular, it will offer enhanced support to those who need it most, and allow students to assess their own needs and access support from the University in the way which suits their circumstances best.”
Oxford University announced today that they will offer both fee waivers and bursaries to students from lower income backgrounds, alongside a rise to £9,000 fees for all other students.
CUSU President Rahul Mansigani commented, “I am delighted that we have forced the University to throw out its plans to cut maintenance bursaries…Cuts to our bursaries would have been disastrous, preventing thousands of students from fully participating in the Cambridge experience.”
Describing the protests that had taken place, he added, “This is a powerful demonstration of how effective Cambridge students can be when they campaign together. We have saved our bursaries!”
Musab Younis, a postgraduate student at Wadham College, Oxford, and an outspoken participant in many of the student protests last year, said,”I think the Cambridge students are absolutely right to try to retain what they can in terms of access to university based on merit rather than privilege.”
