Current £9K fee system ‘fails sustainability test’, says report

Tuition fees were introduced because Britain was bankrupted by Labour and the Tories preferred social exclusion over cuts to the welfare or war-fare budgets. If the government has to take on £36k debt for a 4 year university course or if this government debt is past onto an individual is an accounting exercise. It does not change the excessive levels of debt (public and private) in this country!! But as private household can’t print money to pay off their debts, private household debt reduced economic growth more than public debt. Sixth formers with foreign language skills could always opt for university education in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany or Spain and return to work in the UK, where they would be thousands of pounds better off (per year) than their UK educated colleagues. Instead of calling it "tuition fees" lets call it a tax on not having learnt another European language. Take the example a BSc in Engineering at KIT, Germany's largest teaching research institute. The all inclusive, year round living expenses (including insurance, fees, flat, internet, phone, transport etc) are 680 EUR per calendar month. Return flights from Stansted are usually about £60. While German engineering courses are much more comprehensive, they are tougher, require more independent learning and have a 48% drop-out rate!! The 52% who graduate tend to have a guaranteed job at the end with an average starting salary of 42,000 Euros (that's considerably higher than Engineering graduates from e.g. Imperial College).