> approximately 50% of people go to university. No they don't. [0] What are you implying here. Make it more expensive, more people will come? That's a bit sil

> approximately 50% of people go to university. No they don't. [0] What are you implying here. Make it more expensive, more people will come? That's a bit silly and just looking at the UK as an example ignores that educational attainment has grown everywhere. You could say the same for other countries where fees didn't become so expensive. The German Abitur (sort of A-levels that is a decent proxy for higher education) grew by sevenfold (as a portion of the population) in the last few decades. That's just the economy, political and educational system at work, improving. Now does money impact education, obviously. A free school in a traditional form would definitely be crap. But there's a difference between free and costless to the student. That's the difference between the UK and most other EU countries. Take this chart for example, dark-blue is higher education expenses: http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/0416FFB3-62FD-42AD-B3F2-074ADE0A1806/0/uitgaveneu2007fig1.gif http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/0416FFB3-62FD-42AD-B3F2-074AD... You'll find Denmark at the very top spending more than the UK per student (which makes sense, they're much richer). It's no surprise then that Denmark offers solid education and that Danes make ample use of it. It's not that the UK spends more per student on education than everyone else, it's simply that the percentage of revenue sources is more from tuition fees and grants, than the public, than pretty much anyone else in the EU. At best it lowers educational attainment because you end up with the same funding for universities as before and the same as other countries, only the barrier to entry is now higher for students. Some fees make sense to create incentives to do well in school, actually graduate and take it seriously. Like say in the Netherlands where you'll pay something between $7k and $10k generally in tuition for a degree. (supplemented by tens of thousands of funding from the government per student to the educational institution). But again, the notion that increasing fees in these countries makes educational attainment skyrocket is myopic. [0] http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/jun/04/higher-education-participation-data-analysis http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/201...