Many students across the country are unhappy with having to pay for accommodation which they can’t use because of lockdown. Some have joined rent strikes, urging their universities to cut the fees on accommodation.
One of these students is Bushey resident Zak Nathan, who is campaigning for a 40 per cent reduction on rent fees for the 2021/2022 academic year.
As well as a reduction in fees, the campaign calls for more financial and mental health support for students, no repercussions for people that are striking the rent, no COVID-19 related job losses on campus.
Zak is currently a first-year undergraduate student at Warwick University, but his first six months at University is far from the experience he expected.
He told BusheyNews: “Some students say they have imposter syndrome, especially because we didn’t do our exams and have been put into university regardless. I don’t feel like occupationally I class myself as a student. I have been to three seminars in person.
“In September there was a mix of online and in-person learning. I would genuinely say online seminars are near pointless for most people. The idea of seminars is that by speaking to people, you learn from others and understand what you’ve learnt. But raising your hand on Microsoft teams, none of it feels natural.
“There are so many issues that go beyond just the rent. Some students have paid upwards of £100 for sports clubs and societies they can’t use because they are closed.”
Zak runs the social media pages for his universities rent strike campaign, including the Instagram account ‘rentstrikewarwick’ has over 1,300 followers.
He said: “We got a lot of momentum on our social media pages because of the political nature of Warwick. Everyone is pretty active following student-run accounts challenging the University.”
Warwick University is amongst those that have offered a waiver on rent for students off-campus until March, but students feel more needs to be done to reflect their lack of in-person education.
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