Top-up fees mean that universities are increasingly under pressure to confer degrees upon students, who perceive the degree as a commodity they've purchased. Failure doesn't enter into anyone's calculations.

Textbooks are no longer given to schoolchildren; they're too expensive. So they're given to the teachers, who probably need them more.

People who are given whatever they want soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose their sense of proportion.

Pop music provides not just the soundtrack to our lives, as the cliche goes; it releases our emotions and helps us to articulate them. This is why music is so important to adolescents, who are struggling with questions of identity and self-expression.

Tuition fees are the biggest change British universities have had in years. Before they were importers, but now with the tuition fees and given the exchange rates, the cost of studying here is not much more than staying at home.

Tuition fees are the biggest change British universities have had in years,