Wes Streeting, the NUS president, said: "It is an extremely worrying time for all students, with top-up fees leaving them with record levels of debt".
Instead the green paper asks whether the licence fee should be reformed, replaced by a household levy or replaced by some sort of hybrid model possibly with top-up fees for the wealthiest.
I was a member of the first generation to go to university with top-up fees, which at the time didn't seem that bad: £6k a year would only add up to £18k overall and I'd probably pay it off within 5 years of graduating.
The Conservatives promised to take Sure Start back to its "original purpose", which would probably mean a rump service for the poorest families, with top-up fees for daycare places, and the Liberal Democrats didn't even mention Sure Start in their manifesto but did make promises about extending nursery education.
Dr Keith Hughes Edinburgh University The drop in applications has more to do with top-up fees and the cost of a degree (often four years, with one spent in the US) and the reluctance of some universities to support area studies.
As with top-ups, the egalitarianism behind the 50% tax rate is a political dead end.
The striker has accepted a basic £80,000-a-week deal from Liverpool, half what he earns in Italy, with top-ups dependent on a series of stringent behaviour-and-performance clauses worth up to £2m a year.
The independent Gonski review recommended a School Resource Model to provide the same funding to all students, with top-ups for known factors of disadvantage, such as rural and remoteness, Indigenous background and disability.
If not, then those who can will have to buy these most precious commodities by contributing privately with top-ups to a basic NHS and private tuition to get children through exams that low-grade schools no longer achieve.
