Free for all on tuition will embed two-tier world

Graduates leaving university this summer are already worrying about their double whammy of the poor job market and being the first set of students to have paid tuition fees.
According to one survey, two thirds of graduates do not expect to find a graduate-level job once they complete their studies.
On the same day, (the irony, the irony) a set of elite universities have been pushing their case to be allowed to raise the £3,000 per year cap on tuition fees.
Already potential students are worrying about the cost of even going to university, while others are choosing their potential campus based on the price of living in a city, rather than its academic quality.
Typically the cost factor is going to hold back students from poorer families, or families who have previously not attended higher education from applying.
If in the UK, we have a set of universities which charge £10,000 per year for tuition, and another set that charge £3,000 there will be young people who won't even dream of applying to the first more expensive set, and we will embed a two-tier system of higher education even further.
An interesting Sutton Trust report has already shown that Britain is wasting talent. That some of its most talented but poorer school pupils fail to go on to take A levels.
And another report showed that nearly two thirds of young people who chose not to apply to university did so because of fear of debt.
Students from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are far more likely to apply to a university nearby - rather than apply to the best university for their subject. Again cost is a factor.
And here's something not very surprising - pupils from private schools are far less likely to choose a local university than a state school student.
As must be obvious to all of us, rich kids from rich families don't worry about tuition fees and paying them, and poor kids do.
By allowing the cap on tuition fees to be lifted, and to allow a free-for-all in the tuition fee market, these differences will become more and more marked.

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