Without ceremony or hype, the Student Loans Company - the main source of financial support for over 2.6 million students - doubled the interest rate on student loans, pushing the average annual interest on student loans over the £1,000 mark.

President of the Student's Union Elle Gray brought the injustice of the student loan system’s increase, from 2.4 percent to 4.8 percent, to the attention of new students during the Union's freshers’ welcoming speech.

Superficially, this change may look like an increase of little significance; however this is just the latest in series of developments affecting student’s loans. As Gray states, this means that interest rates on some loans are now over £1,000 per annum and rising.

Student debt is currently estimated to be running at just over £14.6 billion. Student debt is of course not a new development, but this recent addition to the financial woe means that as of this year a student leaving university can expect to take over £20,000 of debt along with their shiny new degree.

In a speech which detailed the financial plight of students and the struggle being fought by the Students’ Union for free education. Miss Gray spelt out the implications of fees and a profit seeking Student loan Company: “We are being encouraged to buy now and pay later – should the Government be encouraging us all to get into so much debt before we even start in life?”

On paper, from the detached view of the politician, top-up fees must have looked like a simple idea; each university is given the freedom to charge extra tuition fees, meaning that each institution will be able to vary the fee they charge and be able to pocket the cash. This way, the Government claims, over-subscribed and popular universities can charge more, while institutions that may be struggling can charge less to attract more students.

Sycophantic supporters argue that the abolition of up-front fees should encourage more young people to apply. The reality of course is very different. With fervent privatisation of universities in full swing, our institutions of education have become little more than profit making organisations, run like a business not a place of learning. Potential students from a working class background are being dissuaded from achieving their academic potential due to the increase in debt whilst middle class students whose means tested loan fails to hit the mark required for LEA aid are forced to take part-time work, greatly affecting their chances of reaching top grades.

It is this ball and chain of debt which has led a government think tank to label students the I.P.O.D generation: Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and debt ridden.

Attitudes to this problem are perfectly epitomised by experts on the BBC advice website who claim “if students are not fussy about which university they go to, or even which course they might take, then there are opportunities to shop around for cut-price deals”.

Shop around for cut price deals? Students must be free to find the best university they can academically reach, not the one they can best afford. These experts have reduced education to an exercise in bargain-bin shopping.

With the introduction of fees and the continued privatisation of education, students are being reduced to consumers of education. Dan Ashley, Press officer for the National Union of Students, claims that this free market of education can only have a negative impact for working class students: “essentially students from wealthy backgrounds will be able to pick and choose what universities and courses they opt for, whilst others will be left with little choice.”

When it comes to education there should be two constant, universal truths:

• Education is for benefit of education, not the benefit of production.
• Education is about the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.

Many supporters of top-up fees argue that the Government has a finite amount of money which therefore obliges students to make a contribution to their education. This argument fails to take wider context into consideration. As Elle Gray asks, “how can the Government afford £2.8 million per day on the occupation of Iraq, but not fund fees and fair access to education?”

When looking at the wider context it is clear the Government has its priorities wrong: the occupation of Iraq is continuing to cost both lives and money. American economics report, The Baker Report, estimates that the coalition will have spent over one trillion dollars since the invasion in March 2003.

This year also witnessed the parliamentary vote to spend £35 billion renewing the ageing Trident Missile system. There is simply no need for such antiquated Cold War thinking. It would be a dark day for British democracy if an elected Prime Minister would ever be capable of consigning millions to nuclear hell.
There is an alternative, and it is straight forward: if the unnecessary capability to wage nuclear war is scrapped, that £35 billion can go to not only wiping out the student debt that currently stands, but can also create a state sponsored education system that provides free education from the nursery to university.

This is not simply an idealistic dream, but a proven alternative. The Scandinavian welfare states have such a system in place, indeed it costs the Norwegian government €5.9m a year to maintain such a system. Surely this is the only viable solution to a government pledged to “education, education, education”?
The privatisation of education threatens everything the Union stands for, everything that education is supposed to represent, and is an issue about which the Students’ Union refuses to stay silent.

President Elle Gray concluded her speech by announcing that the Union would be launching a new Free Education campaign, building upon the top-up fees protests of last year
The campaign will include discussion and debate between the students and leading thinkers, as well as local MPs and the University Vice Chancellor John Craven.

It is time that those who wish to shackle students for their own profit are held to account.