Letter to Andy Burnham MP, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Dear Prime Minister,

Congratulations on your recent appointment.

We are writing to you on behalf of Russell Group Students Unions, a network that represents over 750,000 students studying at research intensive universities across the country. Our members include over 200,000 international students. We are the voices of diverse body of future generations, skilled workers and elected student officers.

One of our member unions, University of Manchester Students’ Unions, has seen first hand from your time as Mayor of Manchester how you worked with students to make Manchester a better place to work and study. We're keen to work with your government in partnership to tackle the big issues facing students today.

“We look forward to seeing how your government will work with our students’ unions to achieve our shared goals of an education system that works for everyone. ”

Recently, we released our vision for higher education: a student-led proposal for how government can make the higher education sector fair and welcoming to all. Universities will continue to be make significant economic contributions to the economy under your tenure. Our institutions will support your efforts to tackle unemployment, produce a skilled labour force and drive innovation and growth for generations to come.

Our vision highlights five areas for a strategic realignment for the higher education sector:

1. A New Settlement for Students – reforming the sector via increased public investment and consultation with students.

2. Funding Students for Study – ensuring that all students, regardless of background, have access to an acceptable standard of living costs and are not saddled with unreasonable debt for a lifetime.

3. Accommodation Fit for Study – continuing to drive forwards improvements in the private rental sector and ensuring that students are protected from harm.

4. International Competitiveness – ending the recent slew of hostile policies on international students, including changes to the graduate visa, ability to bring dependents, and the international student levy.

5. Creating a Fairer Education System – higher levels of study should be accessible for everyone and structured to allow students of all background and demographic to thrive once in the system.

We ask that you make some immediate changes to support the millions of students, prospective students, and graduates across our nation.

1. Scrap the international student levy. International student fees are already cross-subsidising research and teaching of domestic students. This levy would further damage the finances of universities and the UK’s reputation and a welcoming, high quality education destination.

2. Reform the student loan system. The current system is unfair and places far too great a burden on student contributions to fund their studies. We welcome the Treasury Committee’s inquiry and recommend that your government reforms student loans to protect those on the lowest incomes.

3. Support our campaign to tackle gender-based violence on and off campuses. We have secured a debate in Westminster Hall on 7th September to debate legislating misogyny as a hate crime. We ask that the government supports our proposal.

Thank you for your continued commitment to improving the lives of students in higher education. We look forward to seeing how your government will work with our students’ unions to achieve our shared goals of an education system that works for everyone.