Education before cash (From York Press)

There is a cap of direct fees applicable to students. They cannot charge more base fees unless the government changes the system yet again (cue more protests on the streets) or the posh universities go private, like they threatened before the fees were increased, although didn't carry out after Minsters told them their students wouldn't have access to the student loans system.

However, there is an argument here, as seen by the NUS's recent action: 'Come Clean' where the additional costs of university must be transparent, or at best included in the fees. These include compulsory trips, materials, printing and other extras.

I see the UCU has today displayed calculations showing that the average graduate produces an extra £180,000 over their working lifetime over and above an A level leader towards government coffers. Earlier figures stated that the average graduate earns £100,000 for themselves over their entire working lifetime over and above an A level leaver.

With ex-NUS president Aaron Porter having produced figures in a presentation showing that the average English/Linguistics graduate from York St John's is only likely to earn £24,000 extra, we can see how the average debt to get through university of £44,000 plus major interest from this coming October means that there are issues across the board for local students, particularly where we see a high proportion of locals attending our own universities compared to the posh universities, which attract richer students.

We all want to ensure the best life for our children. We want them to be educated, productive, have good family lives. It's difficult to see how with such a financial burden that many will, particular with the long term recession which appears to be getting work, sky high accommodation costs in York and little appropriate work (I wouldn't call part time minimum wage jobs 'appropriate' for graduates. They may as well have left school after GCSE's for that work.)

Graduates won't have to pay the money back until they've reached a particular threshold and even then it will only be a precentage of their salary. Yes it means they will have this debt with them for many years but at least they don't have to pay it straight away. And if they only get minimum wage jobs they'll never have to pay it back. As for top Universities charging high fees, you can't blame them. If lesser Universities are charging £8,500 they have to charge more otherwise it looks like they're not as good. And reputation is very important to attract students in the first place. You should blame these 'lesser' Universities for having ideas above their station.

Personally, I do think most people would be as well not bothering with University though to be honest as a degree isn't really worth much these days. If you are going to go on to higher education you'd be better doing something vocational.

Tuition fees should not put off any motivated and able student from going to any university (as long as the fees are commensurate with the quality of the university/course).

Students get a loan to pay for the tuition fees, which does not have to be repaid until they are earning over £20k, and even then it's only a percentage of what they earn over £20k. That means that anyone can afford the tuition fees (cost of living may be a different matter). Because while £20k might not sound all that much when you've got a family and a mortgage, when you're a recently graduated student it's a fortune and you can easily live within that.

Neither of you two have touched on the interest on the fees, the fact that 41% of our youth are currently going through university, combined with qualification depreciation and the changing face of work in this country meaning people start their working life saddled with debts. Let alone the fact that this new system is likely to cost the tax payer more than the previous system. And the tax payer will be those same students.

We've got teachers in secondary schools telling our kids to work hard and go to university. Telling them they'll have a family, house, decent job, good life. This is not exactly truth is it? And when people comment on stories like this saying, "accept it, change is good, cuts are good, debt is fine," the readers really ought to be asking, "what are these peoples qualifications to make statements like these?"

There are two stories here, one related by the government, and one from NCAFC. Until everybody has read both, choosing sides is a disservice to our children's futures.

Surely the teachers should then stop telling children that they should go to Uni. Wouldn't that be the simplest thing to do? Tony Blair used to really annoy me encouraging everyone to go to Uni. It is NOT appropriate for all kids to go, some of them are better off taking up apprenticeships or going straight into work. What he's now done is devalue the degree so that businesses are looking for Masters in addition. We can't afford to pay for all these people to go to Uni, the money has to come from somewhere. Also, the amount of money Universities are given by the government has gone down so they have to make up the short fall. I don't think they went about it the right way as there shouldn't be so many high-paying universities but I do agree with it in principle. How else is it all to be paid for? Who will pay for the actual financing of the loans if the students aren't charged interest? It's a shame but blame Tony Blair!

@MrsHoney, the money the government 'give' hasn't gone down. The government told universities that they can take on more students, but they'll continue paying what they were before as a total amount. This has led to commercialism in universities of a sort that can only be harming academia, the students and the business world taking the result in.

As I've pointed out above, the new fees system is likely to cost the tax payer more. If we accept those students then become taxpayers, then they are paying for their own education, the administration system, then paying for others education where those who go into lower paid work (that frequently is community work, not 'bankers') which seems to look like the system costs more shifting additional costs onto the taxpayer. We have to wonder why they bothered changing the system in the first place. Sometimes what seems like a poorer system that is already in place is more cost effective. Adding monetary terms to everything is also likely to harm education, in what happens whilst taxpayers are in their student years, and what work they choose to go into. If they become mercenary, then they aren't going to want to work in those vital community roles, and so we lose the best workers and our society collapses. The kids and the old don't get looked after by the best people, etc.