But there will be voices calling to keep the current system in place - and the Department for Education will be unlikely to provide any propulsion for change. A report this week from the Centre for Global Higher Education, based at the UCL Institute of Education in London, said that the introduction of tuition fees had made the system better funded and able to expand to provide places for more students. The study said that fees had meant a "dramatic increase in investment" in per-student funding - with university budgets no longer having to depend on governments with more pressing priorities. Dr Gill Wyness, co-author of the study, said the current fees and loan system "keeps university free at the point of entry, and provides students with comparatively generous assistance for living expenses, while protecting low-earning graduates from the risk of high repayments". But the study highlights that this is as much about perception as economics, and "the system is still poorly understood by students".

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