First degree burned

When Lord Browne's report on higher education funding recommended a £6,000 cap on government-subsidised tuition fees, most students – including those writing for The Journal – wrung their hands and lamented the suggestion as being the worst possible outcome. This week, however, the coalition government has proven us all wrong. Universities minister David Willetts' announcement that £6,000 will, in practical terms, actually be the lower threshold for fees in England and Wales, with the upper limit set at a lofty £9,000, has added a new element of terror to the whole sorry narrative.

Amid all the panicking students concerned about the rocketing cost of their degrees, a discomfort felt just as acutely among Scottish students who can see the end of free education on the horizon, the coalition government has taken steps not to calm fears, but to exacerbate them.

In these cash-strapped times, there is undoubtedly an urgent need to strike a balance between ensuring that students make a reasonable contribution to the cost of their education and still meeting the significant funding needs of higher education institutions. Mr Willetts' announcement, however, fundamentally disregards that balance. If we were worried that a £6,000 cap would deny poorer students the opportunity to attend university, the only real achievement of a £9,000 cap is to further widen that inequality.

This policy is a kneejerk reaction to Britain's economic troubles. Preventing bright, capable individuals from entering higher education by shackling to their degree a long future of massive debt does not bode well for the country's intellectual health; nor, by extension, for its economic growth.

There is an important distinction of scale between students taking a fair degree of responsibility for the cost of higher education, and returning education to archaic levels of exclusivity by making it cripplingly expensive. A graduate contribution, payment of which is measured next to earnings after graduation, ensures the cost of a university education is fairly met by those most able to pay. We had hoped that the age of academic elitism was past, but this government's approach to higher education would certainly seem to suggest otherwise.