'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

I concur with basically all of this. Great minds think alike, yes ;)

I especially agre with these two points:
"Unfortuantly the proposals have some sense in them: with the current state of government finance it wouldn't be practical to outright abolish tuition fees." Yes. I feel that most universities are in a lot of debt becasue they have to keep funding new improvements through a small government grants that do not give them enough to break even. I think the gov't gives the uni a minimum of £5,000 per student at the mo... (I did read some proof in support of this a while back, but can't for the life of me think where I read it now...)

"Labour is of course against this, in a wonderful case of the pot calling the kettle black." I had heard that the plans (regardless of which government got in) were to raise the fees to £5000/£6000 anyway. The conservatives have just raised it a bit further.

*sigh*

Gotta love speculation, student debates, and constant cries of "You're making things harder for the most vulnerbale in society!" Youth, elderly, etc. Those people have ALWAYS had it tough - throughout history - and our country is not in a good enough financial state to support them all in the 'way they should be'. And I'm not sure we ever will be, it's quite an ideal.

But, at least we're not verging on bankruptcy like Ireland.