Students at Columbia and the University of Manchester Are Rejecting Austerity in Higher Ed
Across the world, universities have seen rising tuition costs, bloated administrations, and worsening conditions for students in recent decades. By organizing a rent strike at the University of Manchester and a tuition strike at Columbia, undergraduates at the two schools are drawing a line in the sand against higher-ed austerity.
Students who are on rent strike wave from the window of an accommodation tower block that they have occupied in protest in Manchester, England. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images)
This November, student organizers at the University of Manchester organized a rent strike, which won the largest ever concession from a British university in response to student protests. Students are drawing attention to the extortionate rents and appalling conditions in residential halls that have come as a result of universities’ monopoly on student accommodation and mismanagement during the pandemic.
This December, student organizers from Columbia Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) have gathered the support of more than three thousand students for a tuition strike in January, which would be the largest in American history. The tuition strike aims to win not only a reduction in the cost of attendance, but more democratic control of how Columbia’s endowment is spent.
The pandemic and resulting economic crisis have been catalysts for student activism in both countries, but the students are responding to longstanding problems in higher education of prioritizing financial growth and expansion over student and faculty needs.
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