My reflections of two years as a student representative in the higher education sector

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This blog was kindly authored by Alex Stanley, Vice President Higher Education at the National Union of Students.

It has been an eventful two years being Vice President Higher Education at the National Union of Students. We’ve seen rising tuition fees for the first time in a generation; culture wars on campus; major white papers on immigration and post-16 education; the concerning rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia; student loans becoming story of the year; and I even managed to dress up as a shark on live TV.

There is no understating the scale of difficulty in the sector. The financial climate we find ourselves in makes the work we do more challenging, but equally, ever more important. The sector doesn’t exist separately from the political and cultural context, and, in many ways, it is a microcosm of wider society. The polarisation and mistrust in institutions create a challenge for organisations trying to bring genuine concerns into the mainstream in a constructive way, against a backdrop of ever more demanding and understandably impatient members. The work we do often feels impossible and our expectations around what ‘success’ looks like are forced to expand despite limited resources and the sector’s modest position on the Government’s list of priorities.

Despite this, I am proud of the work that we have done. From securing two key student-friendly amendments to the Renter’s Rights Act, to over 50 SUs responding to the EHRC’s consultation on their guidance, to securing the return of targeted maintenance grants, to the beast that has become the debate around student loans, we have taken opportunities as they have arisen.

That would be my message to new SU officers entering the movement. We have shown that when we organise well around constructive policy arguments, we can, and do, win. The student movement is a broad and diverse coalition composed of members with a variety of world views and with differing approaches to change-making. Our size and our diversity are our strengths. The voices of millions of young people coming together to advocate for themselves creates a force to be reckoned with (we have seen as such with student loans recently). But we can also be our worst enemy. Our vision must be to transform post-16 education and to change the lives of learners, but there is no doubt that looking inwards and the, well, politics of student politics can be difficult to navigate in the fast-paced, unpredictable world of change-making.

I have thoroughly enjoyed engaging with colleagues in and across the higher education sector. We may not have always agreed on everything, but our shared drive to push for what is best for both learners and institutions gives me confidence in our ability to navigate ourselves through tough times. There is always a fear as a student representative that your views will be written off and that you exist to tick a box, but that is not how I have felt over the last two years and instead, I have experienced two years of debate, collaboration, and honest discussions about the future of the sector.

Yet, there is still more to do. The Government has a considerable job to do in getting young people on board and investing in higher education and investing in students would be a promising start. In the face of political and economic uncertainty, it cannot again be young people who pay the price for ‘difficult decisions’ and fiscal responsibility. Recent policy discussions have shown that the public are ready for a national debate on intergenerational unfairness and at the NUS we are working hard to make sure that the rights of students come right at the heart of that discourse.

Our institutions are the pride and joy of this country. The soft power they bring, the research, the cultural benefit, the economic power and the jobs they create are all pivotal. But none of that exists without students. We all have a role to play in ensuring that being a student is as enjoyable and fruitful an experience as is possible, and it has been a privilege to play my (small) part over the course of my term of office. I look forward to watching on as the sector, institutions, unions, representative bodies, think tanks, and beyond– continues to deliver for those who come through it.