The following is a sponsored post by UniHomes.

In 2020, the Student Publication Association surveyed student newspapers across the UK – and the results were shocking. More than half feared they would have to shut down within the next 12 months, with many reporting budget cuts of 50% or more. The situation is likely to have only worsened in the years since – in 2024, the Higher Education Policy Institute, a UK thinktank, reported that student newspaper funding is “becoming more precarious”, with knock-on effects on the “freedom of the student press”. 

If more evidence was needed, just look at the list of closures and near misses over the last decade: the London Student (University of London) closed in 2014; Cambridge University’s The Cambridge Student shut in 2016; The Student (University of Edinburgh) was only saved by emergency crowdfunding in 2023; the future of LSE’s The Beaver was thrown into doubt when its funding was removed the same year; and last year Palatinate (Durham) was forced to turn to donations to keep its print editions going.

And now, unfortunately, it’s Redbrick’s turn to fight for its survival. 

These are hard times to be student journalists, then – but over the last few months we’ve seen first-hand student writers’ talent and passion for reporting what’s really going on at their campus and creating content which helps others have the best uni experience possible, through the launch of our Content Ambassador programme at UniHomes. That’s especially true of student newspapers, which are staffed by volunteers ploughing countless hours of their free time into reporting which informs and entertains their fellow students. 

We launched our Content Ambassador programme this year as part of UniHomes’ ethos of helping students to make the most of their time at uni. Although our overarching goal at UniHomes is to make students’ lives easier by taking the stress out of house-hunting and sorting your bills — we work with a wide range of letting agents across the city so we can showcase Birmingham’s best student accommodation from across the market in one convenient place, all with utility bills already included — we didn’t want to stop there. Serving student communities is at the heart of what we do at UniHomes, so it only made sense for us to commit ourselves to amplifying the voices that shape student life everywhere.

That’s why we’ve recruited students in key UK uni cities (including one of Redbrick’s previous Editors-in-Chief, Ash Sutton) to write authentic guides which will help future students at their university enjoy student life — top tips for where to go, what to do, what to know before you start, which areas to live in, and more. 

These student writers have been vital in helping us offer more value to the students who visit our website. As the UK’s largest student accommodation platform, UniHomes operates in more than 50 cities and towns across the UK, but we have an especially large user base in Birmingham. We launched here in 2021, and now showcase one of the biggest collections of Birmingham student accommodation anywhere online. Thousands of current Birmingham students are living in houses and flats they found using UniHomes, and are using our student bills packages to make managing their utilities easy. Each letting season, Birmingham students make over 300,000 property searches on our platform — and now, thanks to our Content Ambassadors’ blog posts, they have new access to insider information on Birmingham’s top student areas, giving them an insight into which neighbourhoods to focus their property searches on. 

What we’re trying to say is: when we saw Redbrick’s appeal for funding to help them survive, our links to Birmingham’s student community and talented student writers meant we couldn’t stand idly by. We’ve pledged a quarter of Redbrick’s goal total to keep one of the UK’s oldest and best student newspapers running, because we believe independent student media is absolutely crucial to the UK’s vibrant student culture. 

Student newspapers shine a light on what’s really happening on campuses; current students are the only people who really know the issues affecting students in their city right now. The increasing prevalence of social media fake news and AI deepfakes means it’s more important now than ever before to protect accurate, high-quality student journalism. 

It’s also about supporting the careers of student journalists by protecting the environments where they hone their skills – both through student newspapers, where many of the UK’s top journalists cut their teeth, and through our Content Ambassador programme which provides paid writing opportunities, a rarity in journalism work experience. 

We’re investing in student journalists, because we believe wholeheartedly in the importance of their work.

 So, long live Redbrick and long live UK student media!