Fees fi fo fum

POLITICAL apologies are rarely so awkward. In 2012 Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, explained in a short film why he had broken a promise to vote against raising university tuition fees. “I shouldn’t have committed to a policy that was so expensive when there’s no money around,” he said. Mr Clegg has now lost even that excuse. It appears that the new student loans scheme could in fact cost the government more than the old one. Yet that does not mean that Mr Clegg’s U-turn was a mistake.

When the coalition government raised fees paid by students in England (Scotland and Wales have their own policies) from around £3,300 to £9,000 a year, the idea was to boost universities’ incomes while cutting the amount of taxpayer cash spent on undergraduate teaching. State-backed student loans, repayable only when graduates begin earning, were extended to cover the cost of the higher fees. This, it was thought, would stoke competition in higher education while also helping to reduce the deficit.