(en) Ireland, anarchist WSM paper Workers Solidarity #128 - Student Loans = Student Debt

This college year has seen a large increase in the number of students taking out loans in 
order to go to college. As part of an aggressive advance into the student debt market, 
Bank of Ireland has already agreed schemes to provide ?discounted loans? to students in 
DCU and Trinity, and to postgraduate students across the country (in this case the scheme 
was negotiated directly with theState) .BofI is also said to be in ?advanced discussions? 
with over 10 other 3rd-level institutions. ---- After the raising of the so-called 
?registration fee? (which in reality is tuition fees by another name) to ?2,250 over the 
years of the crisis, many students are now left in a situation where they need credit in 
order to attend third-level college. Clearly, with the registration fee due to rise to 
over ?3000 in the next few years, the student debt market will only continue to expand.

This should be seen as the ?thin end of the wedge? in a creeping privatisation of 3rd 
level funding. The austerity agenda of the government and the EU/IMF, coupled with a 
pre-existing neoliberal ideological commitment to transforming public services into 
businesses which must turn a profit, means that the funding of 3rd level education by 
means of private credit is an attractive policy. Students are increasingly treated as 
consumers of a product rather than participants in an educational process which benefits 
society, and are increasingly expected to act as a revenue source for the state, for 
universities and for financial institutions.

The upshot of this is that access to education will increasingly depend on students? (or 
their parents?) ability to access credit, and to handle the debt burden. In other words: 
this will function as a barrier to working class students accessing higher education.

So far, political opposition from the student unions and the Union of Students in Ireland 
has focused on the details of the plan rather than on the issue of free education. USI 
have criticised the ?punitive? interest rates being charged to students (around 10%) and 
have raised issues around access to loans, but have thus far remained relatively mute on 
the wider political issue of who should pay for education (despite being mandated by 
students to fight for free fees funded entirely by the Exchequer).

As anarchists, we oppose the reshaping of education to the logic of the markets and oppose 
all class barriers to education. However, we also recognise that this can only be achieved 
if students organise, in solidarity with other working class people, and take direct 
action to fight for our right to an education.

WSM members are involved in Free Education for Everyone, a grassroots campaign of 
students, education workers, and others affected by these issues, which opposes the 
neoliberal restructuring of education.

For more see: free-education.info