Hmm… scratches head and strokes chin a la Reeves and Mortimer’s Ponderers.

Can’t quite think what they’re doing here.  The maths are not difficult for the individual.  A three year degree could very well cost £9,000 per annum, making a total of £27,000.  That’s twenty-seven-thousand-pounds.  A big hole in anyone’s budgeting.  Even if you manage to keep your living expenses down to something manageable like £5,000 a year that’s a total debt of £42,000 before you even start work.  That is a whole field of beans, never mind a pile.

Why have they done this? I suppose that there are many different answers and I’m not going to attempt to discuss them now.  Save to say, it’s short sighted in my opinion.  I feel that there’s a real case of understanding the cost of everything and the value of nothing.  We need graduates if we are going to enable our economy to grow.  I have no figures to back this up, but it’s pretty obvious I’d say.  Yes we also need entrepreneurial types who perhaps wouldn’t go to University anyway, but even in their companies, they will need graduates.  And so it goes on.  I think that £42,000 worth of debt before your reach the age of 23 wouldn’t faze many of today’s youth.  However when pressure or advice from parents and other concerned parties is brought to bear, we may well see a rapid reduction in the number of sixth form students progressing on to University life.  Who knows?