On Wed, 03 Jul 2013 20:52:15 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:

Of course, the costs haven't changed - it's just that the student pays
rather than the taxpayer

The students are *supposed* to pay, but the overwhelming expectation is
that the student's parents pay. I've never seen newspaper articles on
"how to pay your university fees", but piles and piles of "how to pay
your child's university fees".

The fact remains is that {students,parents} now pay all of it rather
than about a third, and the government pays nothing rather than two
thirds.

Umm, no.

Courses are still heavily subsidised for UK students. The exact amount of
subsidy obviously varies from course to course, institution to
institution, but it's still there. If it wasn't, then overseas students
would be paying £9k, too. They aren't - they pay a lot more - and
universities NEED to attract them for that funding, to help with
subsidising UK students. Even then, universities require a lot of other
funding to not collapse financially.

Given that the number of students at university has exploded in the last
few decades, was it really sustainable to expect government to support
them all to the same extent?