Has Ås municipality forgotten that we are a student town?

Writer and translator: Marie Tjelta

Recently, two opinion pieces were published in Ås Avis regarding student services in the municipality. The first was by Jan Henrik Martinsen (Conservative Party, Høyre), who criticizes my editorial from the previous issue of Tuntreet, where I accuse the municipality of implementing student-hostile policies. This was followed by Kjetil Barfelt, the group leader for the Progress Party (FrP) in Ås, with a piece criticizing the Student Welfare Accociasion (SiÅs). After reading both articles, I am still unconvinced that the municipality is pursuing student-friendly policies. On the contrary, it seems that Ås Municipality has forgotten that it is, in fact, a student town.

The Municipality’s Responsibility

Both Martinsen and Barfelt want to place a greater responsibility for students’ health services onto NMBU and SiÅs. Currently, the municipality wants to reduce its contribution to funding the Health Station for youth and students from two-thirds to one-third, while also setting an age cap of 25 for the service. Martinsen writes that my claim about a reduced health service for students depends on whether SiÅs and NMBU maintain the service. “If they don’t, it suggests they don’t see it as important enough,” Martinsen writes. Barfelt, in his piece, writes that SiÅs behaves as if it were a “state within the municipality” expecting special treatment in matters related to the Health Station and Vollskogen.

First, I want to emphasize that the municipality has a statutory responsibility to run a Health Station for youth up to the age of 20 (25 if it is a specific situation, such as a student town). While SiÅs and NMBU are obligated to address the students’ study-specific welfare needs. In 2012, SiÅs and NMBU joined forces to help finance the Health Station with the municipality. At that time, the agreement was that the service would reach all students, including those over 25 years of age. The remaining costs for those above this age were to be covered by SiÅs and NMBU. Thus, this was an agreement beneficial for all parties. SiÅs and NMBU got a health service for all students, and the municipality got a more accessible and enhanced service for all young people in the area. It was a win-win situation. But now, with the new decision, the municipality risks creating a fragmented service with lower quality. It is the municipality’s responsibility to finance the Health Station, not the Student Welfare Organization and the university. SiÅs and NMBU have contributed to providing a service for students who fall outside the municipality’s statutory obligations. This is a clear abdication of responsibility on the part of the municipality.

In Barfelt’s piece, he takes the liberty of digging into SiÅs’s financial statements. He points out that SiÅs had a surplus of about 35 million in 2022 and 2023, in addition to 150 million in reserves by the end of 2023 – why can’t this money go to the Health Station? Here, Barfelt misses the mark. Not only is the money he refers to already “spent” on housing, but it is also a diversion from the core issue. It is the municipality that is responsible for financing the Health Station for youth. One can argue that SiÅs and NMBU should contribute to funding an extended offer for students over the age of 25, but the regular health service is their duty to operate.

It is also worth mentioning that the municipality receives state funds when students register their move to Ås. Aroumd 500 students register their move to Ås each year, which results in a one-time grant worth millions to the municipality—something other municipalities can only dream of. Not to mention the many jobs Ås has gained from the university and the research institutions that have established themselves in the municipality. Therefore, one would expect the municipality to offer more than just plowing the roads for students. Shifting this responsibility onto SiÅs and the university is a betrayal of the students. The municipality receives money when students register their move, while the Student Welfare Organization receives limited funds. These primarily come from the students themselves through rent and semester fees. Should students have to finance their own health services while the municipality benefits from their registration?

Hypocritical Politics

Additionally, the municipal council has set a conditional requirement for the development of Pentagon. If SiÅs wants to build more housing, it must build an underpass under Meierikrysset to ensure that increased foot traffic from students doesn’t cause further traffic problems. This is likely to be too expensive for SiÅs and halt the project. Martinsen claims that this is a reasonable request and that it is wrong of me to call it an obstacle to the development. Barfelt, on the other hand, writes that it is a bit of “rebellion” on SiÅs’s part to claim that they cannot afford to develop a better solution for traffic flow in the intersection. However, I believe that the discussion about not expanding Pentagon due to fear of increased student traffic reveals an unsettling dissatisfaction with students.

The fact that the municipality wants to limit students’ health services under the guise of treating them equally to the rest of the Ås population makes little sense when you consider the differential treatment that is happening with the development of Pentagon. It is clear that there is a general trend to cut student services. Shifting more financial responsibility onto SiÅs while simultaneously complaining that they are “a state within the municipality” is contradictory. We must not forget that Vollskogen was approved for other uses. The regulatory plan for the Vollskogen housing plans was processed before the Pentagon development in 2023, yet no requirements were made regarding Meierikrysset at that time. Ås Municipality is engaging in hypocritical politics by not approving the development of Pentagon. Why should students be treated as second-class citizens? This is blatant discrimination by the politicians. I would even go so far as to call it dangerous misuse of power by the municipality.

The Right to Criticize

Regarding my criticism of the municipality threatening to destroy our local nature by developing Vollskogen into a housing area, Martinsen responds that this is an old decision with broad support. Although one may disagree on how this affects the students and the local community, he believes we should agree that the decision has solid democratic backing and should therefore be respected.

We disagree. Tuntreet, as the student newspaper and voice for the students, has a statutory responsibility to criticize and challenge. This applies even to established truths. That a decision has broad support is not an argument to avoid criticizing it. On the contrary: it shows just how united the local politicians are in pursuing a student-hostile policy, which makes it even more important to criticize.

A Disturbing Red Thread

The municipality has been pursuing student-hostile policies recently, and it gives me a bad feeling. The issues don’t align, except for one point: they all downplay the importance of students. They share a common thread, and that is that the student is always the problem. It’s high time for Ås Municipality to get its act together and remind itself that we are a student town!