OVER THE PAST two decades the National Union of Students have overseen a massive attack on the living conditions of students in Higher Education with the introduction of student grants combined with the erosion and eventual abolition of student grants At the same time there has been an enormous increase in the student population that has been nowhere near matched by resources available to universities.
Now even the NUS has recognised that students under Tony Blair's penny-pinching regime are worse off than they were five years ago under the Tories.
In 1994, David Blunkett in opposition derided the levels of student poverty as a "badge of shame" for the Tories.
He is now wearing the same badge, leaving many students to wonder which party really won a landslide victory in 1997.
Throughout this period Labour Students have maintained a tight control on the leadership of NUS, as they have steered it on a course of passivity and acceptance. Outrageously, they even proposed the introduction of fees, long before it was even Labour policy.
This has forced up the level of debt for undergraduates - and the latest leaked figures show that it is also deterring more students from applying for university places.
Applications for places in September 1999 - the first year without any form of grant - are almost 4 percent down on the same time last year.
Figures from the UCAS clearing won at least partial victories. Students at the University of East London occupied the main administration building at the Barking site for over two weeks last May, opposing massive cuts being proposed. In the middle of last month around 100 students went into occupation again at their smaller Greengate site in Plaistow, to oppose cuts and demand better equipment, and permanent.contracts for staff, whose contracts had not been renewed. Within a