NUS to Charge 5.5p for Democracy

The NUS is to start charging students' unions for its "Democracy" card, the previously free alternative to NUS Extra.

In an email circulated to students' unions, National Treasurer Dave Lewis has announced that the NUS will be begin to charge them for boxes of the 'Democracy' card. This card is used to prove membership of an NUS-affiliated union, but does not - in theory at least - allow the same discounts as the £10 NUS Extra card.

The Democracy card is not available at Imperial due to a lack of demand - Imperial College swipe cards prove membership of ICU, so Union cards were withdrawn several years ago. However, while the card is effectively useless at Imperial, this change is set to affect small universities, further education institutions and those who have managed to blag discounts with the free card, rather than paying for the 'Extra' card.

The cards come in boxes of 500 and will now cost £27.50 per box, a cost of 5.5p per card. Although this would be a small expenditure for a union the size of ICU, smaller universities and further education colleges are often underfunded and use the cards as their only student ID - cards they received for free as part of their NUS affiliation. The NUS sees the Democracy card as a competitor to the NUS Extra card, which they are pushing strongly as it raises money for the organisation and the students' union - £4 from every card goes to the union making the sale.

The decision has also been criticised for going against the principle of a number of policies passed at NUS Conference in the last few years, which have called for the Democracy card to be kept as it is and advertised alongside the NUS Extra card, as an alternative for those who do not want to pay £10. Conference in 2007 was also opposed to any further transfer of discounts from the Democracy card to the Extra card, believing that the Extra card should offer 'extra' discounts, not just the same ones as before.