The ins and outs are not as complicated as you'd think, but the people in charge do like to make it come across as if it's too much for mere mortals to understand.

The fact is that to have stuff you need to either make something of equal value so you can trade, or borrow. Ask yourself where the factories and industry is now in the UK? Then look at the amount of debt we have. It's scary that all the country is doing is basically borrowing to spend. That's how we have our living standards now. If at some point we can't continue (as a country) to borrow, then things will get pretty miserable for a while.

The thing is, by funding higher education like this we're continuing to spend more than we make and borrowing to make up the rest. And not much of the money spent will turn out to be productive for the country. How many of them are going to do degrees in engineering, to build factories and some sort of industry to create wealth? Not half as many as are doing totally unproductive degrees in things like sociology etc I'd bet.

I agree, but we all know how politicians like to 'create equality'. Paying for higher education would reverse what they see as progress.

The problem is that people complain to politicians about getting a bigger slice of the pie - they don't like people having much more than them when they don't have as much as they'd like. But what odds does it make to someone how well off the next man is, if they're better off too? If people just concentrated on increasing the size of the pie, this country would be a better place.