WALKING away from a meeting with the dean of my university alongside my classmates, I couldn’t help but smile at our unified collective action. 

Major cuts are having to be made for 2019-20 and when you are personally coming out of your degree with a cumulative £27,000 tuition fee debt, cuts to lecturers and modules are the last thing you want. 

Swinging into action, I got together with my fellow students, organised a formal letter on paper rather than a generic email, which secured an overnight meeting with the dean. 

For my younger comrades, this was the first time they had witnessed the power of collective action, so I wanted to ensure they could see how it worked first hand. 

As a working-class woman with trade union qualifications as a workplace rep, I could not let the opportunity pass.

Coming to university at 51 hasn’t been easy. My uni is over three hours’ drive away so I am in university halls alongside other students.

For many working-class women with school-aged children this would not be a choice, which is why I have waited until my children were young adults to go. 

For many of my class, Open University is their only option, or part-time courses at local universities. More needs to be done to help working-class women back into higher education. 

My A-level results were over 30 years ago but I was accepted straight onto my chosen course. Other students returning to education often opt for a Gateway Access one-year course to see if university is for them, but I plunged straight in.

Two things probably top the list of my concerns and that of all students. One is the postcode lottery of student finance. The other is the rocketing costs of both halls rents and private rent. 

I am fortunate enough to be the very first cohort of students in Wales who are receiving maintenance grants rather than loans. We do however pay full tuition fees via a student loan. 

Under the recent Diamond review in Wales, students collectively voiced their concerns about day-to-day living costs and rents. 

Previously Welsh students had enjoyed a grant towards paying half of the tuition fees. There was no new money available as the Tory Westminster machine controls the Welsh government budget, but now the focus is on living costs and the maintenance grant is indeed a fantastic thing to have. 

However, students from England have to pay full tuition fees and they receive a maintenance loan, so get no help at all. This should not be the case. 

University aid should not be a postcode lottery. A Corbyn Labour government is looking to cut or even abolish tuition fees which would be a boon for all students.

University halls rents can literally be the first thing any working-class student looks at. In fact, it can actually be the one factor that decides which university we go to. 

Without knowing the precise stats on how many working-class students are attending any London university who actually live north of the Watford gap, there are definite no-go university cities out of financial reach of our class. 

Some halls’ rents are upwards of £7,000 per year and a few are in the £10,000 bracket. When working-class students like myself are receiving around £9,000 loan or grant in total to cover rent plus living costs, these rents lock us out of courses and certain universities. 

This really is something the Labour Party should be tackling. It can’t be right that students with rich parents or mature students on the highest incomes should have their pick of any university while working-class students are tailoring their studies to the cheapest rents and living costs. 

This is education apartheid by the back door, and caps should be placed on all university halls’ rents.

One aspect of university I did not foresee, but one that should be given more publicity, is the incredible loneliness a student can face which can lead to mental health problems. 

For the first time ever the Office for National Statistics published suicide rates for university students in 2018. 

Suicide rates were found to be high among young, male and first-year students, more than any other category. 

While my university has an excellent network of support workers and university awareness is growing over mental health issues generally, university can be a lonely place if you are not a confident outgoing gregarious person. 

There are times you can retreat in on yourself, and the rabbit-hutch halls rooms don’t do much to help either. 

Being pitched into halls with complete strangers who may be flatmates from hell can add to the mental pressure of coping with studying and fitting into university life. 

At my age I can compartmentalise my studies from my other life and I see university as getting a job of work done. 

For many younger students, however, it can become an isolating place, and should your university not be in a city but a rural location, as mine is, that isolation can predominate and grind you down. 

However this cannot be regarded as just a university issue, as our mental health services are in meltdown Britain-wide and we have gone beyond a crisis in society’s mental health as a whole. Again, a Corbyn-led Labour government has mental health as a top priority to tackle.

The cuts in higher education are becoming a major problem. Students are now customers paying more than £9,000 each year. 

Despite this, vice-chancellors are on huge salaries of over £300,000 in many cases and universities have become dazzled by building major projects they cannot actually afford. 

My university is not alone in making swingeing cuts to senior lecturers’ posts and cutting the choice of modules until there is virtually no choice at all. 

This is all due to the market economy dominating the entire sector. As a first-year student my department could be losing some of its most experienced lecturers as the university is in deficit to the tune of over £6 million. 

I have come here to be taught by lecturers with that expertise. In many universities these posts are being cut entirely or are being replaced with newly qualified lecturers on a much lower payscale. 

The whole university economy is now being marked by paying the bottom dollar for everything. Many support staff are working on zero-hours contracts too. 

It is not sustainable. Student-customers are justifiably angry and are mobilising; hence our own recent collective action at my university. Yet younger students are much less likely to question authority and protest as they have been brought up in an era where civilised protest has been stamped upon, and freedom of speech something they have come to fear, as every last comment is documented on social media or filmed on mobile phones.

I would urge any working-class woman whether 18 or 59 to consider a university education. Yes, we have to be mindful about the choice of course and the choice of university. But more from our number need to make this leap. We need to be able to challenge the perception we are only good enough for supermarket or factory work. 

We possess hidden talents that need to blossom. From our number must come a future Labour leader, for example, as only when working-class people are placed in positions of power will change come for all the working-class people in society, for we understand the problems facing us all, as we walk in those shoes every day. Each working-class woman deserves to start her own personal revolution.