Imagine yourself back in Year 12. Remember the countless questions about university: whether to apply, how to go about it, where to go, what to study, how to write a personal statement. You might remember the feeling when you flicked through the Cambridge prospectus, unsure of which college to pick. What are the differences anyway? How do I know how much a room will cost? What do I even do with all of this information?!

I often complacently forget what it was like at college or Sixth Form. It’s easy to take my experience at Cambridge for granted – being honest, I know I have done. After being here for three years, or even after just one, I have become absorbed with student life. It is far too easy for me to forget about the daunting challenge of application to any university.

This challenge grows by the year; access to university is harder now than ever before. Fees have gone up; bursaries and funding across the country, particularly for research, have been slashed; and when we leave university, there’s certainly no guarantee of a job. Even before this point, the abolition of Aimhigher means students are without adequate information, advice and guidance to make decisions on their future and the removal of EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) means many struggle to afford to stay in education beyond GCSEs.

It’s not just government policy that turns students off applying. Many view Cambridge as an unobtainable target; its excellent academic reputation and rumours about the application process can be daunting to many prospective students. Some schools are unfortunately limited with the resources or time to devote to supporting Oxbridge or indeed other university applications. Financial issues and the thought of being saddled with debt are huge problems for many students.

Students undertaking the challenge of application urgently need support from us, their Higher Education counterparts. Student-led access initiatives are more important than ever, especially in the current climate of education policy.

Nobody is going to kick off these access initiatives for us. We need to proactively reach out to students from every background, and that really does mean every background, to show that Cambridge, and university in general, is an option for everybody to consider. Nothing but academic potential should determine whether someone gets a place to study.

We all know about tuition fee rises and the horrendous impact they have had on many potential university students. A survey by Which? consumer group and the Higher Education Policy Institute showed that students are taught for just 18 minutes more per week in 2013 compared with 2006, despite fee rises. Total applications across the UK were down by 7.7% in 2012 according to UCAS, certainly because of these stratospheric fee rises. It is simply disgraceful that some students feel unable to get a university education because of the cost. Education is not for the wealthy alone.

We are uniquely placed as a student body to speak out, and more importantly act powerfully in response to all of these issues, and frequently we do. Cambridge students already run some excellent schemes, but we need a bigger and better effort than ever! Keeping access to Higher Education open for everyone is becoming more and more urgent by the year. Here are a few examples of access schemes in Cambridge, so you can get involved…

The Shadowing Scheme hits Cambridge at the start of Lent term – hundreds of secondary school students arrive over three weekends, shadowing current students and getting a taste of life as a Cambridge student. You might have seen less familiar faces in lectures or slightly disorientated students around colleges!

CUSU runs this scheme independently of the University, and is the only Students’ Union in the country to run anything on this scale. In fact, it’s the only SU with a full-time Access Officer position. The Shadowing Scheme runs so that students who are full of potential but who have no family background of higher education or come from schools that struggle to send students to Oxbridge know that Cambridge is a real, exciting option. It has been a massive success over the last few years – the 2013 scheme was 31% bigger than 2012 and the biggest on record with 374 shadows.

Students are strong, effective campaigners. We saw that yet again this year with the AS Level Petition against Michael Gove’s proposal to abolish AS Levels. THANK YOU to everyone who signed it! The team collected over 1600 signatures and 230 individual testimonials, which were all presented with Julian Huppert MP to the Department for Education. We can make a difference to the people in government and on behalf of prospective students. The campaign continues – we’re writing a response to the DfE’s response, and encouraging people to write to their MPs. See here for more info: http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/campaigns/aspetition/

This solidarity between Further and Higher Education students is absolutely vital! We ought to reach out beyond the Cambridge bubble to school, sixth form and college students. CUSU will do this, particularly in conjunction with Toni Pearce, recently elected as the first ever Further Education President of the NUS. But what is equally important as CUSU reaching out are normal students going into schools to talk about university.

The Target Schools Scheme gives Cambridge students this exact opportunity. It provides a training session once termly and resources for talks and workshops so that you can go back into your old school (or any school!) to encourage students to think about university. It’s fantastic for secondary students to hear university myths debunked and to get a real account of student life. 

If you want to visit a school, just get in touch with CUSU (target@cusu.cam.ac.uk). The new Target Schools website is currently being developed so keep an eye on the CUSU Facebook page for more info when that goes live.

ACCESS, ACCESS, ACCESS. If nothing else from this article sticks with you, I hope that word does. Once the madness of exam term is over and you’ve recovered from May Week, spare 5 minutes to think about a school or college you could visit before their term ends in July, or pencil in a diary reminder to ask your Access Officer about the Shadowing Scheme. We really can make a big impact to dispel some of these ridiculous Cambridge myths and to encourage students from every background, every area and every school or college to apply to university. 

Varsity Platform is a new series intended to allow campaigns and organisations in Cambridge to defend their causes. If you would like to participate, emailcomment@varsity.co.uk and give a voice to your campaign. 

The first part of this series is available here.