Atlantic Chambers’ barrister Martin Mensah on the student fees hike

01/01/2011

Many headlines have been dedicated to the Government’s decision to raise university tuition fees.

There were violent and unsavoury protests including the defacing of Winston Churchill’s statue, attacking the heir to the throne and smashing the Supreme Court’s windows.

Some advance the argument that students benefit from a university education and therefore must entirely foot the bill.

Others feel great sympathy for students facing tuition fees of £9,000 per year and the concomitant debt burden.

From an employment law perspective it raises the question of whether this situation could be exploited in the workplace.

Take a young graduate couple starting a home and family, attempting to fund a deposit and other bills as well as repaying loans of (jointly) £54,000 plus interest.

They inevitably enter employment in a weaker financial position and one wonders how keen they will be to assert their rights under the law.

Will they be less willing to react when confronted by a boss seeking to impose more onerous contractual terms and conditions than those agreed, or experiencing bullying and harassment in the workplace?

The students should enjoy their protests now. In the future with the spectre of such huge debts, such expressions of dissent may be all too rare an event.

LDP Legal 21.12.10

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