Following a recent Freedom of
Information (FOI) request to the University of Warwick asking ‘whether the
£400,000 saved by the University from last year’s UCU strikes is funded at all
by tuition fees’. The official response has proven the idea being spouted by
Warwick Student Union that ‘the £400,000 is separate from tuition fees’ as a
falsehood.
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| Illustration of Warwick SU with their metaphorical pants on fire. |
Over the Summer, Warwick SU prompted outrage over their handling of the fight for student compensation from the UCU
strikes. In a now-deleted statement on the Warwick SU website, they triumphally
announced that as a result of negotiations between themselves and the
University of Warwick. The £400,000 saved by the University due to the strikes
was not going to be spent on refunds for students, but instead invested
elsewhere.
This news did, however, leave
some students perplexed considering less than two months prior to this
announcement, a motion entitled ‘Warwick SU for Returning Tuition Fees from Strike Days' had passed overwhelming with 75% of the votes being cast in-favour
of the motion. This policy mandates the SU to lobby for the ‘…direct
compensation from the University of Warwick for students directly affected by
the UCU strike…’.
The reasoning made by the SU, at
the time, for not following their mandate to lobby for this money to be spent
on refunds was that ‘…this pot of money (the £400,000) is separate from tuition
fees.’.
However, the official response by
the University to the FOI request brings considerable doubt to this notion. With
the University of Warwick stating that ‘All staff costs are funded in some way
from income [the University receives]. To a large extent this [income] will be
from student fees…’.
Whilst the University says it is unfeasible
to uncover exactly how much of the £400,000 is funded by tuition fees, the fact
the University has accepted the obvious truth that the forfeited staff wages comes
from tuition fees, probably to a large extent, is pretty damning for a SU that
has justified its unpopular position by claiming that tuition fees and the
£400,000 are separate.
Will the SU now accept, what most
knew from the start, that the £400,000 and tuition fees are not separate matters
in the slightest?
By The Warwick Eye
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