Chris

My opinion on student loans is that it is very difficult to use the word 'moral' in this area!

When I was at University in the early 90s, loans had just begun to appear as a top-up to the Grant and the continuous bleating from the Student Union was 'education is a right, not a privilege'.

Actually, I think it is both, and a loans system of some kind acknowledges both. Yes, it's a right, and our system increasingly ensures that everyone who wants to go to university, and is academically able to go, can do so. However that level of investment in the betterment of an individual confers on that individual privilieges that others do not have (the State has spent £1,000s more on me than it did on one of my classmates, who left school at 18 and went and got a job and started paying taxes). It's not unreasonable for the State to set limits to that privilege and to expect something in return for its investment.

We are no longer in a situation where only 5-10% of school leavers go to Uni. When that was the case the Grant system was eminently affordable. Now we are heading for 50% of school leavers going to Uni (many of them to study worthless qualifications at dubious 'universities', in yet another piece of flawed Labour social levelling) and we have the hugely increased costs that are associated with it.