Goldsmiths art students ask for money back after months without classes

Students in the master of fine art programme at Goldsmiths, University of London are asking the university for tuition money back after 21 weeks of staff strikes left them with little instruction this term. Florence Sweeney, a part-time student, said many fine art students have had "virtually no teaching" and that a group of them were seeking remuneration.

Ten of the MFA programme's usual 12 tutors have taken strike action. Sweeney described the situation as a financial drain and said classmates had become distressed, anxious and in some cases depressed. Some moved from the other side of the world, she said, without a proper welcome or briefings. The two-year course charges nearly £15,000 a year for full-time UK students and £33,000 for international students.

The strike by University and College Union members began in April as a marking boycott over proposed job cuts. Management responded by deducting 100% of pay from those taking part, which the union called a lockout. After a formal ballot, UCU members at the south-east London university have been on indefinite strike since early June. Joe Newman, a co-president of the Goldsmiths UCU branch, said the action answered the "unprecedented scale and speed of the cuts" management is pursuing.

Goldsmiths said only about 8.5% of staff are on strike, leaving most students unaffected. A spokesperson said the university faces financial challenges and that it had offered compromises including a pause on compulsory redundancies, while declining to drop the 100% pay deductions for the marking boycott. The spokesperson said the university was giving regular updates and meetings with schools to affected students.

Goldsmiths has been squeezed by falling applications in core humanities subjects and the erosion of domestic tuition fees. One staff member described the result as "non-stop" rounds of redundancies and restructuring. John Carver, a part-time second-year student, suspended his studies after what he called a "dismal" departmental meeting at the start of term.

James Evans, an international student from the US, said visa and funding restrictions keep him on the course despite the disruption. He said he never received marks last year and has no feedback on projects from then. This year, Evans said, there is "no structure, barely any communication" and students have been "left to our own devices."