NUS. Whats the point?

[politics student]

The student union of the UK, I have always known that they are there simply to attempt to show we are represented when we had none. These elections they hold were annoying popularity contests. Even if you got someone in who wanted to make a change it was incredibly unlikely it would be managed.

An example was a rally for the 16+ right to vote, cleverly advertised using a single poster off the side of the main entrance where only a handful spotted it.

While I have got fed up of this joke of a union. They do nothing to help the students and are busy selling themselves as the drinking hole on X number of nights a week.

As many students due to the word Union in its name, we thought of it as a union. http://www.nus.org.uk/en/Campaigns/ (http://www.nus.org.uk/en/Campaigns/)

You have to enjoy the "Sign the petition to end the violence in Zimbabwe."
ummmm so rather than focusing on issues that lets say are do able and really effect students, they are running a petition for an African country....
I will leave university with £21K worth of debt if not more. (Possibility fees will be increased again)



The interest rate charged on student loans is linked to the rate of inflation, based on the Retail Prices Index.
The interest rate for student loans applies from 1 September to 31 August each year. From 1 September 2008 to 31 August 2009, the rate is 3.8 per cent.
Taking inflation into account, the value of the amount you pay back will be more or less the same as the value of the amount you borrow - no one makes any profit on the loan.


3.8% interest.... My loan will be about 21K due to 3 year degree.
If we charge interest to 21K it becomes 21798

If I am earning 15k it works out to £22 a month, meaning I pay off about £300 a year....

Odd how this privite company seems to be making money off my loan considering it would take such a long period of time to pay off.

[rednordman]

Totally agree. The NUS is f**king useless. From my experience of univercity, it was indeed just a pathetic popularity contest (elections) and the most progressive thing that they did was probably send a couple of coaches full down to london one day to protest the rise in tuition fees. Again rather than it actually being of any use, it was simply used as a photo opportunity so they could make themselves look good..but then again, thats all univercity was about anyway:mad: (in my experience).
What gets me going is that it uses topics such as stoping violence in Zimb., and helping students against unaviodable paracitic scumbag landlords. These are all good causes, but i always knew that they wouldnt be able to do an absolute iota on these issues (the sheer thought of challenging landlords property rights nowadays..:lol::mad:).
Infact, it amased me how they could bring up all these good issues, yet it was still SO obvious that they where only doing it to make themselves look good. The only serious reason of being a NUS rep was that it was supposed to look good of your CV:rolleyes:.

[Dr Mindbender]

thirded. When i was at uni, i was a member of SWSS and we were the bane of the union leadership. I remember one year the union hq sent down some posters to publicise the anti fees demo and they just sat in a drawer not being distributed. It was left to SWSS to to all the publicity work. Useless wankers.

[Holden Caulfield]

i have a friend and comrade who is in the NUS and he effected a no platform policy on his campus with a view to have it on all campus' around the country,

plus students can be radicalised by such 'play politics'

[Pogue]

They've got some good people. I heard the leader of the black students section of the NUS speak today (or yesterday now I guess) at the TUC Conference centre in London for an anti-fascist/Spanish Civil War memorial/entertainment night and she was pretty clued up and a good speaker. She spoke of the Tory/Nazi ****s at the top of the union who have been involved in cases of racism lately. The Tory scumbag one held up a sign at a NUS event saying "Bring back slavery" and another one said that having more black people at universities was "undesirable" because it meant there would be alot more knife and gun crime. What a ****. So clearly theres a problem there with right wing twats in the union.

I realised early on its a mickey mouse union at the moment. My sister went to college before me and told me that its basically a popularity contest to get elected. They do alot of stuff but its mainly parties, flogging the Extra card and community days, which is all good but obviously not as radical as we'd like. Its sort of mainstream stuff like celebrating diversity day, talent day, breast/testicular cancer awareness day. Good stuff, the sort you'd expect form what is essentially a union working for the interests of young people who wont likely be into hardcore politics and shizzle, but a bit more social activism would be good. More people like the black students lady I heard speaking today would be good. By the way the nazi's at the top of the union have both been kicked out and banned from the union and its events.

I joined as soon as I started college on principle and because I had hopes for getting involved, but seeing as its a popularity contest and I'm hardly popular that seems unlikely, and also pretty useless, although it'd be cool to organise for student actions if we could make it effective. I'm considering joining the SWSS at some point, even though I am not a Trot or a big fan of parties and shit it'd be cool to organise with some radical leftists in a student environment and i have respect for the organising and activism of the Trot groups. Perhaps Sam B can fill me in more on this, if you guys would let an Anarchist get involved with you. No worries I wont try Kronstadt on you or anything :D

In summary, the union is pretty ineffectual, but then again its basically meant to be a service to students who are going to be focused on having a good time and socialising so the less political and more personal-social focus is not suprising, and also most students tend to be fairly priviliged anyway, the flip side of this of course being that tuition fees and students debts are crippling and students face alot of issues in regards to their treatment and lives, and also obviously historically students have tended to be radical and good activists and it'd be good to see more of that, ala Paris 68. Theres definately a need and palce for student radicalism and I think the NUS could be used as vehicle for that potentially, if we try hard enough, cos theres alot of issues which affect people and some politics can be fun, but its a ahrd and enccesary struggle we need to carry out. Don't worry though folks as soon as I'm elected to the NUS council I'll be leading the charge through the pig lines in the great student strike of 2010 or whatever :D

Meanwhile I'll be getting pissed on cheap SUB beer thanks...:thumbup1:

[politics student]

Whats the chance I could get elected by attacking the current set up of the union and the halls/landlords?

Saying that I could make an amazing speech and the person in the jaffa cake box is more likely to win.

[Pogue]

Well I don't know about University level but at College the coolest or best looking person will win. People don't really care about the policies, unless you're college is in touch. At Uni its probably better because it matters more.

[politics student]

Well I don't know about University level but at College the coolest or best looking person will win. People don't really care about the policies, unless you're college is in touch. At Uni its probably better because it matters more.

My uni had people dressed up to win votes rather than policy. Its a popularity contest with little chance of making people see reason.

[nuisance]

Well I'll be at the demo on November 5th at Cambridge....

[Mather]

I more or less agree with all of the posters on this thread.

I did two years at uni (I droped out in the second year to go out to work) and the NUS are a complete waste of time for any student seeking radical social change and activism at university.

The top NUS leadership positions and the NUS National Executive Committee (NEC) are simply the training ground for tomorrows leaders and politicians, a good number of current Labour, Tory and Lib Dem MPs and a good number of cabinet ministers under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown spent their student days in the NUS. No doubt their time and experience at the NUS was well spent in teaching them the tricks of the trade of the inner workings of bourgeois politics and conning people into voting for them.

A really depressing but true fact. All the more depressing if a student is looking to become politically active and to work for radical social change.

There are some student organisations that are part of the many socialist/communist parties in Britain:

Communist Party of Great Britain: http://www.communiststudents.org.uk/
Socialist Workers Party: http://www.swss-nationalsite.moonfruit.com/
Socialist Party: http://www.socialiststudents.org.uk/index.php

The other socialist and communist parties, if they have a presence on campuses, tend to operate as parties rather than by having seperate student organisations.

Sadly there are no established (to the best of my knowledge) class struggle anarchist student organisations. Though there are active anarchists in many universities.