In the late autumn of 2010, shot through with hope, fueled by anger, hundreds of thousands of students took to the streets all over the United Kingdom, uniting in protest against the new coalition government’s plans to triple university fees and scrap the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), a small grant for poorer school students. For many, it was their first taste of political activism. In the end — or at least in what seemed like “the end” at the time — it felt like little more than a lesson in political failure.

Despite the mass mobilization of students, an infamous occupation of Conservative Party headquarters, and violent clashes with police, Parliament voted in early December to raise the ceiling on annual tuition fees in England to £9,000. And while the government insisted that this amount would only be levied in “exceptional circumstances,” nearly every university introduced fees at that rate.

Demonstrations and occupations against the new policy continued into the new year, but they attracted smaller crowds and even less attention. In the next general election, in 2015, the Liberal Democrats were punished for partnering with the Tories — a toxic alliance that entailed reneging on an electoral pledge to vote against any tuition fee increase — and saw their seats in Parliament plummet from fifty-seven to a historic low of eight. But the Conservatives were rewarded for their work: they won re-election with a working majority, and David Cameron became one of the only prime ministers in history to re-enter Number 10 with a larger share of the vote.