Who can join NUS?
Your students’ union decides whether to affiliate to NUS based on the views of its individual members. Affiliation to NUS enables your union to invest in a national movement and to benefit from the wide range of services we offer. Here are some of the benefits your students enjoy when your union affiliates to NUS.
A powerful and effective national voice
Like other groups such as nurses or teachers, students need a national voice to ensure they’re fully represented. NUS exists to promote, defend and extend the rights of students.
From free education to free prescriptions, from the rights of disabled students to those who rent property while studying, we’ll always put student interests at the heart of our activities as we campaign for change.
It’s primarily because of this representation and support that students’ unions in increasing numbers decide to be members of NUS.
With more than eight decades of campaigning experience, we can maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns by lobbying on a national scale and facilitating official representation to national bodies.
You can read about some of our major campaigning victories here. We’ll continue to raise awareness of NUS campaigns with parliamentarians and further improve our relationship with the media.
Capacity building for students’ unions
We aim to make all students’ unions as strong and vigorous as possible, building skills, supporting individual officers and engaging on a national level to protect their status and independence.
We help unions in their work through the research we carry out, the training we offer to student officers, the materials we produce and the documents we publish. Effectively it’s like getting an additional team of over 50 staff and 25 elected officers to assist your students and students’ union.
Support for students finding their feet
NUS provides services directly to individual students via our website, nus.org.uk, in the form of information and resources relevant to every student. This includes advice on housing, student finance, settling in and Freshers’ week, diversity, and many other topics.
Offering students money off through NUS Extra cards
The NUS Extra card consists of over 80 national discounts available online or on the high street, and is estimated to have saved the average student as much as £189 over the year.
Independent research conducted during 2006/07 found that satisfaction levels of the NUS Extra card were high, with 80% saying that they would recommend the card to friends. In addition, through a small charge for the card, NUS Extra offers an income for students’ unions.
Making your money go further through NUS Services
NUS Services, the commercial purchasing arm of NUS, buys collectively to achieve lower prices and attract higher promotional spends from major companies to benefit students' union bars, catering/coffee outlets and shops.
The savings made from NUS Services national deals on purchasing areas such as brewed products, wines and spirits can equal – or even exceed – the amount of the NUS affiliation fee, making being a part of NUS effectively free.
Last year NUS Services net benefits to shareholders were in excess of £5.3million. These benefits accured from purchasing, licensed trade, retail trade activity, entertainments and collective membership fees.