Thread: Universities are worlds of creativity, analysis, and growth - we face a catastrophic shrinking of those worlds unless university management, academics, and students stand in SOLIDARITY against decades of underfunding https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121270070/victoria-university-halls-charging-rent-despite-locking-students-out

Students are not customers, and should not be treated this way. They are our community, our rangatahi, and they need to be protected. But, likewise, students need to take up their place in that community and not *construct* themselves as customers

The universities are not agents of Smaug, sitting on piles of gold that we refuse to spend. We have been grossly underfunded by governments of both flavours and forced into competition with each other. There is nothing in the budget left to cut

It's time to demand more of government, rather than demanding more and more of each other as we sink under cuts, rising costs, and appalling stress and mental health problems

I hope MPs who have rightly championed students around accommodation costs will be equally vocal about a much less eye-catching cause: a substantial relief package for the whole tertiary sector that keeps academic & professional staff employed and students safe, housed, & engaged

I also hope that, instead of dreaming up ways to leverage this as some sort of competitive opportunity, the VCs will go to the government as a unified force and demanded relief for all of our tertiary institutions