Does it occur to anyone who is supporting the initiative to turn tuition fees into a debt that will saddle every student who leaves university and finds a job for decades that all they are doing is putting on credit something which should in fact be everyone's right to have for free? The right to education is not something that can be put on the plastic, like a purchase of a pair of shoes.
Some people just do not like getting into debt of any kind, a laudable position which ought to be encouraged.
Was it not a credit crunch that led to the financial debacle whose after effects we are still all (except the privileged few) suffering from? Surely after the recent economic problems caused by people being reckless with credit cards, the last thing we need is a government that is actually bamboozling a sector of the population to get into debt whether they approve of debt in principle or not.
This is what Nick Clegg doesn't get.
It is a question of principle.
Far better to enforce tax collecting measures on the incredibly rich who have already established themselves and made their money (some of them no doubt are graduates) and who now manage to avoid paying any tax at all, by hiding their money in Swiss accounts or taking up residency in Monaco.
If we are to make the taxpayer pay directly for education, then at least let the money come from people who can afford to foot the bill now, rather than postpone the payment to some indefinite and ill-defined date in the future.
I am a graduate and have done well from my degree, so I wouldn't object to making a contribution to my old university to help others as I was helped at the time.
This is a far better way to go about things, rather than the never-never.
Turning the treasury into a debt collector on creditors who may or may not be able to pay in the future is both bad practice and a bad example.
It smells a little bit like the subprime experiment.
And we all know how that ended! If our nation can no longer afford to educate its citizens, then the problem lies somewhere in the system.
We all know that the collected wealth of Britain's millionaires and billionaires is staggering.
Perhaps it is time to put that hoarded wealth to good use.