Should university be free

Depends. Does he have a Scottish accent and a dog?

If I marry a Scot I get Scot citizenship

Surely a year of serving your country is the most productive thing to do at the age when you're in peak physical condition?

No. I would like to see unis scale back on mickey mouse degrees though. Also too many people go to university, only the brightest should go and not people who can't get Cs at A Level

Except by 'wide variety of work' you mean instead of two years in a skilled profession you have two years of babysitting or being a receptionist or theme park operator :s
And right now there isn't even a fraction of the required numbers of jobs like that for everyone who wants to go to uni to get one (there's barely enough for people who don't want to go to uni), and the ones that exist don't pay enough to support rent for the people who can't live it home/don't have parents who will pay for their food/utilities now that they're no longer legally responsible and save up for uni? Some people take 20 odd years paying back their student loan because they can't afford to do it any other way - two years of lower work is nowhere near equivalent to that
And it means the country gets two years less of skilled workers - doing the things I mentioned earlier (5% of that skilled worker's working life)
And 'all this experience' will not help them get a job - because everyone will have it.

And again, all of these problems arise because... you want young people to have it tough (for some reason?), and you've added life experience (and the debunked variety of work) - I would say uni gives far more and better life experience than factory work (the only sector which has the capacity to expand to support so many people)?

When i was in engineering uni [BSEE candidate] I worked in the summers and during vaccy periods as a technician [what are called 'engineers' in the Uk]. IMHO, someone in a professional degree pgm [engineering, medicine, law, architecture, etc should work in their chosen profession if they possibly can. About 1980, "student loans" became the rage on this side of the pond. The result was that tuition for a one semester course went from about $680 to over $3000 for the same course. I was doing my masters at the time, and i can ASSURE YOU that the quality of instruction did NOT improve as a result. My uni [George Washington, Uni], hired the Gallop org to find out what GW had to do to improve the prestige of their degrees. The answer came back "you have to raise your tuition". Doing nothing else, they basically tripled the price of their courses - and it worked - they moved up in the rankings. If anything, they got in more "adjunct faculty" who could not "Speek englis tooo gud!" And they couldn't teach either!!! One winning combination - if you are interested in a law degree, is to do either engineering or medicine as your undergrad degree before law school. A mate of mine's kid did an elect engineering degree [BSEE], followed by a law degree [LLD]. About 10 yrs out of school - he was making about $350,000. You CAN live on that. Cheers.

Absolutely not - higher education is not a human right. You want it, you pay for it.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that the current fees are not enough, though the proposed tiered system looks somewhat promising. Ideally the student loan scheme would be scrapped entirely and fees would have to be paid upfront - teach all those workshy 18 year olds that you can't have everything handed to you on a plate.

Bring it back to 3k/year

Absolutely not - higher education is not a human right. You want it, you pay for it.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that the current fees are not enough, though the proposed tiered system looks somewhat promising. Ideally the student loan scheme would be scrapped entirely and fees would have to be paid upfront - teach all those workshy 18 year olds that you can't have everything handed to you on a plate.

Absolutely not - higher education is not a human right. You want it, you pay for it.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that the current fees are not enough, though the proposed tiered system looks somewhat promising. Ideally the student loan scheme would be scrapped entirely and fees would have to be paid upfront - teach all those workshy 18 year olds that you can't have everything handed to you on a plate.

To be honest I think all 18 year olds should have to enrol in a year of compulsory unpaid military service anyway.

Absolutely not - higher education is not a human right. You want it, you pay for it.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that the current fees are not enough, though the proposed tiered system looks somewhat promising. Ideally the student loan scheme would be scrapped entirely and fees would have to be paid upfront - teach all those workshy 18 year olds that you can't have everything handed to you on a plate.

Absolutely not - higher education is not a human right. You want it, you pay for it.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that the current fees are not enough, though the proposed tiered system looks somewhat promising. Ideally the student loan scheme would be scrapped entirely and fees would have to be paid upfront - teach all those workshy 18 year olds that you can't have everything handed to you on a plate.