Furious students have demanded that rent for university accommodation be axed until access to campuses and face-to-face teaching are restored.
Signs of rapidly growing anger come after ministers announced that lectures and classes would move online for most until at least the end of February.
The move was in response to fears over a new, more transmissible strain of Covid-19.
But it has also sparked concerns that individuals could be left liable to pay for accommodate they cannot use.
Now the Union of Scottish Student Tenants Unions (USSTU) is launching a campaign aimed at ensuring higher education institutions and ministers cancel rent for those in university accommodation while campus access is restricted.
It wants the Scottish Government to commit to putting in place a model where the financial burden is placed not on student tenants, but on landlords, who could apply for rent relief loans.
Among its other goals is the creation of university hardship funds, some of which would be ringfenced to support students with housing issues.
Students are in financial crisis!
— NUS Scotland (@NUSScotland) January 14, 2021
Our Nov. research captured the severity of the problem - which is likely much worse now.
In response, student leaders across the country have written to @ScotGovFM asking for intervention.
Find out more:https://t.co/QYnh80dXQ1 pic.twitter.com/H8nMccPgRh
David Elam, USSTU spokesman, said: “Concessions that have been won through rent strikes – or university management’s fear of rent strikes – show how dire the Scottish Government and universities have let the situation become.
“Having to resort to such action, and campaigns such as ‘Listen to Students: Cancel Rent!’, are a direct result of universities and the government’s refusal to listen to the voices of students.
“The Scottish Government has repeatedly claimed that all guidance towards students was drawn up after extensive consultation with ‘relevant stakeholders’, but it has come increasingly apparent that organisations such as the Scottish Association of Landlords are seen as more important than students, despite their lives, livelihoods, and futures being at stake.”
Meanwhile, a new survey from NUS Scotland found that three in five respondents said coronavirus was having some degree of impact upon their income.
Around one in four have had their hours reduced, and around one in 10 have lost their job.
Sixty student leaders have also written to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in a bid to secure increased hardship and digital funding.
They are calling for compensation on rent, tuition fees and no-detriment policies in each college and university.
A Universities Scotland spokesman said: “Universities are ensuring that students are not unfairly charged for university-owned accommodation that they are not using because of the delayed return of most students to campus.
“Universities are working hard to support students who have financial and digital exclusion concerns, and we support NUS’s calls for additional government investment in this.”
A Government spokesman said: “We fully appreciate that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have been financially tough on many groups, including our students, and that’s why we are continuing to look urgently at various issues surrounding the return of students to their studies, accommodation and campuses next term, including financial help.
“We have already introduced notice to leave periods for students in purposebuilt student accommodation and we are aware many students are taking advantage of the provision to withdraw from leases for accommodation that are not using this month and next.
“The Scottish Government made an additional £5 million available to students last month.”
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