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Student Fees are not the problem. It’s a cultural thing.

University student fees are in the news (Chemistry World 5/9/2017 and 13/7/2017). Commentators often look back to a golden era when University tuition fees - in the majority of cases - weren’t actually paid by students. But they were nevertheless paid by somebody.

University education was never “free”, it’s just that the source of the funds was not often made clear to those who were the beneficiaries. Many students of my era had their tuition fees paid by their local authority. Others had their tuition fees defrayed by public bodies (frequently) or private organisations (more rarely). Some even had obliging families. Those who paid, though, had one thing in common. They all thought that the value of education was greater than its cost. It was an investment that they could either make or not make. And they could make it or not make it according to the values they held personally and collectively important.

Like many enterprises, Universities have had to deal with considerable change. It doesn’t really matter exactly what legal mechanism is used to generate the funding necessary for them to survive and prosper. It is only necessary that the value of the experience they provide is positive and greater than the value that individuals, corporations and enterprises invest in it.

It is unimportant what the actual tuition price of a specific University education is. Some might regard £90000 a year a bargain; others would regard £90 a year far too much. One thing, though, is very clear: it is up to providers to set an acceptable price for the value of the services they are providing. Accepting a loan and not paying it back diminishes both the lender and the debtor and is what led to the 2007 banking crisis.