More fees please

Polly Toynbee bangs the nail on the head:

"Spending is already badly warped in favour of the graduate elite: the under-fives, where futures are all but decided, get just £1,800 per child. Primary schools, where children might still be saved from failure, get just £3,200 a head. But university students, already destined to be the high earners, cost a walloping £5,300 each. New figures show how our top quarter of school pupils score highest in the world, while the other 75% fall right down the league table in this most class-divided society. Any wise minister would concentrate any new money on the poorest and youngest first."

The other thing to say is, it's not necessary for an 18 or 19 year old to go straight to university. Making it more expensive (though this isn't an upfront fee, and if you can't pay you won't pay it) should concentrate the mind. I think I had a better experience and got a better result by going, as I did, at the age of 28.

It's easy to forget how lacking in common sense the average 18 year old actually is; university (and I don't just mean the learning part) is wasted on them. Sure, the ones I saw were mostly privileged, spoonfed, and ignorant. I know that the students who go to "new" universities tend to be brighter, more original, and harder-working.

Wait until you're older, know what you want to do, know what you want to get out of the experience, and then go to university and piss all over the rich 18 year olds you find there.