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The student rent strike movement in London is gaining momentum as the weeks go by, and has gradually become one of the biggest in history, as a supporter of the protest tweeted Tuesday.
More than a thousand students from five schools across the city are now taking part in withholding their rents to express their rejection to arbitrary hikes in rental fees.
The movement began with just 150 students at University College London about three months ago, and since has rapidly increased to include the hundreds from Goldsmiths, University of London, the University of Roehampton and the Courtauld Institute of Art.
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At UCL, this is the fourth rent strike students have engaged in in the past year, which has forced the management to pay attention to their demands.
The scrutiny the school’s rent hikes have faced, have prompted university officials to take some action. The school began the academic year with the payment of about US$267,0000 (£400,000) in compensation due to “unacceptable” living conditions in two residence halls.
The rent strike then forced freezes or reductions on the rents of some 1224 rooms, as well as a 2.5 percent reduction of rent in all of the university’s housing.
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Massive rent hikes in the city have largely been able to go unnoticed because students typically stay on on-campus housing for only a year. But many of the striking students say their organizing isn’t only to benefit them now, but as Angus O’Brian writes in the Guardian, they’ve “taken up the fight for access to education for generations of students to come.”
Although students on strike continue to face repeated eviction threats, they are continuing to take a stand against the corporatization of their universities.
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