Lee Bradshaw, the SU Campaigns Officer has helped to launch the NUS campaign “In the Red” by burning a cheque showing £26m to symbolise national student debt.

The campaign has been launched in the hope of stopping universities from raising the top-up fees limit.

The campaign is against the possibilities of universities of setting their own fees, such as Oxford and Cambridge.

In advance of the 2009 review into higher education funding, the NUS co-ordinated a national ‘Day of Action’ on November 5 to call on the Government to abolish the top-up fees system, which leaves the average student with £20,000 of debt, and bases financial support on where students are studying - not how much they need it.

To publicise the problem, the SU created a ‘Wall of Debt’ where students could write down how much debt they were faced with under the current system.

Bradshaw said that the campaign had got off to a good start on a small scale. He said: “It’s going really well, we’ve got lots of students engaged with the campaign in the union and around campus today. A lot of people want to make sure the fees won’t get lifted. The VC of Oxford has said that in order for them to stay in the market with other international universities, they need to raise their fees to £8,000 a year, which we as students should be totally against because it just prices students out of the higher education system which is unfair.”

Bradshaw went on to say that as tuition fees were close to never being introduced two years ago, students must push to make sure this campaign works. He said: “The last time students got together against fees was for the Mission:Impossible campaign in 2002,  where we were just five votes short of not having any fees at all. So if we can get students behind the campaign again, we should be able to get those few extra votes to make sure that the fees don’t rise at all from the current levels. I think that is the important thing that we have to do – the driving force behind the campaign is making sure the fees don’t go up.”

He added: “The NUS is in the process of writing an alternative funding model which they are going to take to the funding review next year that should come out in mid-Spring and then it’s really hoping that when that comes out that we really push local MPs and councils, and we aim to get the message out to parents of future students and our partner colleges as well as current students as the system has just changed, it’s not us that will be affected but the next set of students.”

NUS President, Wes Streeting said: “Students are making a stand today because the current system is completely unfair. All students have to pay £3,145 a year in top-up fees, but they face a postcode lottery when it comes to financial support. Richer universities in the Russell Group can offer poorer students an average annual bursary of £1,791, but those from the Million+ group can only offer £680.

“We want a national bursary scheme, so that poorer students get financial support based on how much they need it, not on where they study. Students and parents also deserve a full, frank and public debate about the current fees system ahead of a general election before families are saddled with even more debt by those who want to see the cap on fees lifted.”

The protests follow last week’s announcement by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills that it would cut partial grants to students from middle-income families, in order to compensate for an underestimation of the number of poorer students claiming full grants.

Streeting added: “The measures laid out by the Government last week will inevitably hit new students from middle income families at a time when they are struggling to cope with the impact of the credit crunch.

“The Government needs to stop tinkering with grants and fees every year, and recognise that the entire higher education funding system is unsustainable.”

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