Sorry, but NOTHING in this life is "free" - particularly if the government provides it. A 19 inch colour telly here is ~$130 or about 80 quid. Tesco gets about $780 for one, last i checked. What's the diff?? All of the taxes you have to pay to get "free" stuff. The money has to come from somewhere, and last i checked, it has to come from the taxpayers. That's us folks!! Filtering the money through the "government" wastes about half of it. When 'student loan' programs came on line a few years ago, all the unis around here showed a dramatic jump in tuition charges. Why? Because they could get it!! I worked my way through undergraduate school. I worked at the uni as a lab assistant, and doing other things. During vaccies and between term breaks, i worked as an electronic technician. When i graduated, i didn't have anything - other than a rusty 14 yr old car i went through high school with, but i didn't own anyone anything either. Today, with the widespread "student loan pgm", tuition charges are much higher, and were i graduating today, i'd probably have substantial debt too. If the 'government' had 'provided' "free" tuition, i'm sure my taxes would be much much higher, so they could get their money back - as well as the 'administrative costs' of administering the loan pgm. Somehow, i'd rather pay the lesser amount. Cheers.