Tuition fees are set to triple at some English universities

Of course, poor pupils aim lower. If trouble happens, they don't have safety net of their families.

Now, with rising tuition fees providing one more possible cost, poor pupils will aim lower still.

I wonder if we will see a wave of English undergraduates applying to continental universities which will enjoy a substantial cost advantage? It would not be at all a bad thing given the decline of foreign languages in UK education!

The thing about continental Europe is that students tend to study locally and live at home. In Britain there's much more geographical mobility. There's so many societies and the students are well looked after in British universities. You don't get this in continental Europe.

In independent schools, the pupils are told to be ambitious and aim high.I was told that in Wales, the school pupils re told that all universities are equal, which is blatantly not true.

It is surprising to see such an ill-informed article in the Economist!

The Browne Review has said that the, if the Government cuts the teaching grant to zero (excepting select disciplines), the Universities would have to charge a tuition fee of 7,000 pounds just to stay where they are. So, a fee of 6,000 pounds would represent an efficiency gain. And, the Government did cut the teaching grant to zero. On what basis does the Economist think that the Universities are "likely to vary the tuition fees"? In fact, it is rather likely that all Universities will charge the maximum fee.

While a hard cap of 9,000 pounds has been announced, the Government has retained for itself the control over it. Only in "exceptional circumstances" is a University allowed to charge above 6,000 pounds. So, there is no market for tuition fees here.

Despite making England the most expensive country to study in in the entire world, the Government has managed to achieve absolutely nothing. I don't know which world the Economist is living in, but the cap doesn't fit at all.

In Australia, while there is some flexibility in terms of how much is charged by the various universities, in practice (almost) all charge the maximum permitted amount.

This is justified by the `weaker' universities, by them saying that they do not want to admit any deficiencies in their courses, as would be implied by offering a cheaper degree.

I suspect the same will occur in the UK

I have conducted some basic financial modelling of graduate loan repayments based on the government's proposed tuition fee and loan arrangements, and I have been pretty stunned by the results. With an average graduate starting salary of £25,000 (the figure for 2009), and annual raises of c.£650 (to a salary at retirement of £50k to £60k) it takes 10 years of employment before a graduate is even meeting the interest payments on a £27,000 student loan.

The loan would take 39 years to pay off in full, meaning that in reality over £10,000 worth of debt gets written off after the thirty year limit on repayments. Is this really the basis for a sustainable system of funding higher education?