He’s proud, he’s scared, and, as he prepares to help in the fight against coronavirus, Ricky Baker, a student nurse, is angry. He’s upset that his year group, the first to be asked to risk their lives in this way, is also the first to have paid £9,250-a-year tuition fees.

More than 15,000 second and third-year nursing and midwifery degree students have opted in to fight the pandemic, helping make up for the 40,000 shortfall in nurses in the NHS. All will be graduating with huge debts – in many cases nearly £60,000 – the result of the government’s decision to scrap the NHS bursaries. To add insult to injury, those graduating this year will have missed out on the new £5,500-a-year grants towards living costs that the government is introducing in September to try to boost falling recruitment.

Since 2017 student nurses have paid tuition fees as well as taking out big loans to cover living costs, with those from the poorest backgrounds borrowing the most. Baker,28, a third-year nursing student at Worcester University, who is waiting to hear where he will be deployed, says: “Many nursing students will have debts approaching £60,000 as we finish our degrees on placements that could cost us our lives.”

To make ends meet students have juggled paid shift-work as healthcare assistants alongside strenuous 37.5-hour weeks on unpaid NHS work placements and university study. Read more

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