The NUS: more than discount cards?

The NUS is getting it from all sides. Groups from currently affiliated universities including York, Manchester, and Sussex have been criticising it, as have universities that are no longer members, including Southampton and Aston. Why? Reasons include its failure to put a dent in the government’s introduction of top-up fees, and criticisms that its processes as undemocratic.

It is also under fire for being ‘too New Labour’, swapping marches and protests for bureaucracy and negotiation. These concerns will need to be addressed if Gemma Tumelty, president of the NUS, is successfully to argue the relevance of the NUS to today’s students, and thus its value for money.

Despite widespread criticisms among student union activists, Andy Cunningham, Campaigns Officer at the University of Manchester, defends the NUS’ importance, maintaining that it is ‘a crucial institution [...] and has a huge impact on national politics’. However, he does recognise that the political potential of this national organisation is not currently fully realised.

He says: “the NUS could be a radical, campaigning and democratic national Union, but only if students get involved and only if they defeat the undemocratic reforms of the current Governance Review.”

It is this review that has sparked protests from student union staff. According to Tom Walker, editor of City University’s student paper, it would transform the union's annual conference ‘from a voting forum of elected student union representatives into a rally with no power to set policy. Student unions would lose the chance to submit motions for debate’.

Could it be argued though, that the bigger issue is not whether students are turning their backs on the NUS but whether they are turning their backs on united action in general?

President of York University Students’ Union, Anne-Marie Canning thinks not:

“We had a referendum to ensure our members wanted to stay affiliated. They did. I think a referendum and the debate it generates is a fantastic way of educating students as to what NUS does for them.’

So, at the risk of paraphrasing Monty Python, what does the NUS do for students? According to the NUS itself, one of its key functions is to ‘provide services to students’ union officers’. These services include official representation to national bodies, training of union officers, research and information, regional support and advice, access to resources, membership of NUS services, and entertainment support and advice.

And what does the NUS receive in return for this? Well, it receives an annual fee which is calculated based on the number of students in the union and the amount of funding that the union receives from the university.

In 2002, the year that the Southampton University Students’ Union (SUSU) ceased renewing its affiliation to the NUS, this annual fee was £68,850. The financial cost of affiliation was clearly a motivating force behind the student-led motion to end membership. In a press release on Thursday 16th May, 2002, Alex Bazin, Clubs and Societies Officer, said:

"The NUS does not provide the level of support or representation that our students expect for the amount of money we pay. I feel that SUSU can provide more than the NUS for far less, leaving money for our clubs and societies, and athletic union." >

Clearly, the NUS would have felt the impact of this decision, given that the Southampton University Students’ Union represented 20,000 students, and that other universities around the country soon decided to follow suit, with Aston University disaffiliating most recently in November 2006. The president of SUSU was unavailable for comment on whether the decision to leave the NUS is still felt to be relevant to Southampton students today, but a current postgraduate and former undergraduate student at the university told how ‘students are given little information on the reasons behind this decision but most are probably not greatly affected anyway’.

This is concerning, especially when considered alongside the statistic that only 15% of the student body at Aston University turned out to vote on whether to stay in the NUS. This is indicative of both a lack of information for students about the structures that are in place to represent them, and indifference on the part of many students. As long as this remains the case, the question of whether the NUS is still relevant itself becomes irrelevant.

At many universities, the debate surrounding the NUS really goes no further than a weighing up of the pros and cons of the NUS card. The NUS Extra card, launched in 2006, offers students discounts if they are prepared to part with £10 to buy it. Launched to help students make their money go further, the card has been attacked as a money-making attempt by the NUS to address a period of financial crisis caused by over-spending and a decrease in income, which backfired and actually ended up making a loss.

The failure of the card is further highlighted by the success of student union cards at some universities. A final year accounting student at Dundee University, which ended its affiliation with the NUS for political reasons in 1969, said that he saw no particular benefits for the individual in being a member of the NUS as ‘showing any formal proof would get the same result’.

The NUS has clearly got its work cut out in restoring the faith of students who have been disillusioned in recent years. There must be acknowledgement that if it is to have a future, it must change with the times and address the big issues, and the driving force behind this reform needs to be the students.

The NUS needs to recognise that issues such as top-up fees and the war in Iraq will rouse students from political apathy in a way that discussion about discount cards never could. If it can convince people that it’s democratic and radical enough to be the unifying force of students concerned about such issues, it may just claw its way back into relevance.