With all due respect it's called 'the real world'. We can't afford to send everyone to University nor in fact is it appropriate to do so. So we have to thin the numbers somehow. You can do that by making going to university horribly expensive. But that doesn't at all guarantee that the people who end up there will make best use of the resource. The simple fact is the best predictor of future academic performance is past academic performance.

Equality in academic performance is something that can only be equalised in the pre-school, primary and secondary stages. The intervention needs to happen at 3 years old, not 18.

We need to give everyone a decent start in life. So that means better education at all levels even if the majority do not go on to university.

Treasury figures show the 106 NHS PFI schemes signed by September last year have a total capital value of £11bn, but unitary charge payments over the next three decades amount to another £58bn.

Of this, £7.1bn is due over the course of the next Parliament in the five years from 2010/11 – a major fixed cost at a time when public sector spending is expected to be harshly squeezed.

But an analysis by Public Finance of PFI schemes across the public sector – with a total capital value of £55.2bn – shows future unitary charges mounting up to £217.5bn over the lifetime of the deals, with a £41.6bn bill over the next five years.

We need to give everyone a decent start in life. So that means better education at all levels even if the majority do not go on to university.

The Tories started it. They called it something else.

Public Private Partnerships. Note how even those partnerships turned out to be.