UNIVERSITY chiefs meet today to consider charging a £300 entrance fee to new students.

But the question is not whether such a sum would really deter any from seeking higher education, but whether this heralds the end of free university tuition.

In short, this entrance fee proposal could be the thin end of a wedge which puts the clock back to the days when access to degree-level education was largely the privilege of the better off.

Yet, why are the the university vice-chancellors contemplating making such a charge when the government claims to have increased state funding of universities by 23 per cent over the last five years? The truth is that universities are hard up having, in a decade, seen the numbers of their graduates rise from fewer than 100,000 to well over double that number. During the same period the funds available per student have fallen by 28 per cent.

Hence, their casting about for fresh revenue and, in raising the prospect of it coming from the pockets of students or their parents, putting the government under strong political pressure by reminding them of the electoral backlash that might ensue.

It is now suggested that - with a looming general election in mind - ministers are seeking to avoid any such political damage by handing the matter to a far-reaching inquiry into higher education; one which might take years to deliberate and produce recommendations.

But, the political dodging apart, we think this is no bad thing.

A full review of higher education is now needed, simply because the financial and operational pressures on universities and students are becoming intolerable.

As we have seen, the institutions themselves are under huge strain.

But so too are students, many of whom, because of the phasing out of student grants, spend their time at college living from hand to mouth and running up debts. Now they face also being haunted by the spectre of entrance and tuition fees.

They and the colleges should be freed from these worries.

But it does not follow that the taxpayer, already providing £7billion for high education, should be the one to ease them.

Extra revenue could come from a properly constructed loan scheme operated by the government, by which students contribute to the cost of their education when, as graduates, they become wage-earners.

And why should graduates not meet some of the cost - when it is the taxpayers, many of whom never had the same opportunities, who are providing up to £15,000 for each student's tuition and generally assisting them achieve higher-income employment afterwards?

We have in mind a loan system like those existing in Australia and New Zealand that give students a totally free education while they are receiving it but, on its completion, makes them indebted to the state.

The government, more out of ideology than practicality, would favour a scheme operated by the private sector, but, as we have seen with the banks chariness in regard to privatisation of the existing student loan scheme, that seems a high expectation.

Besides, repayments to a state-runs scheme could easily be collected through income tax which could be fine-tuned so that graduates who, by way of earnings, had benefited most from their university education could proportionately reimburse the taxpayers who first provided it.

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