£9,000 a year to study at Essex University (From Chelmsford Weekly News)

Essex is a very good university, but it is clearly not one of the very top. So if the likes of Essex - which traditionally takes more students from poorer backgrounds - is charging the top whack, what chance do these poorer students have of affording such fees? Once the loan for living expenses is considered, a degree from Essex will set you back the best part of £40,000. There are parts of the country where you can buy a house for that.

I don't see what the problem is, hopefully the high fees will stop those who go to uni and get a degree only to end up in a job that doesn't require a degree. Anyone who is truly serious about getting qualifications and using them properly will bite the bullet, take whatever loans they have to and get a well paid job so that they can repay them. I am sick of the public purse funding students to have a three or four year jolly only for them to end up as a bin man or a hairdresser.

Here starts the brain drain.

In 10 years' time the UK will be churning out 1m babies per year and their only future prospects will involve them working for the half dozen supermarket chains that have crushed business diversity.

University education will be for the gifted poor and the very rich. And all because the MPs making decisions (without our consent) are hopeless bungling idiots, none of whom are qualified to make such decisions and all of whom are simply using our vote to further their own careers.

Welcome to the UK. It's a f**king mess.

I wouldn't have gone to university if it was £9k a year. I require a degree to go into the field I'm in, however having been taught from a young age that debt was a bad thing and best avoided, I would have had no choice but to accept whatever low paid job I could find and scapping my plans of becoming an engineer.

I understand completely why the university is doing this; the cut in government funding, and the prospect of less international students due to new visa regulations means that £9k fees are the only way to break even, but to be honest I think it could be the death of Essex university. University WILL become an exclusive club, but frankly when mummy and daddys money will pay for the best education possible, very few of these kind of people will choose Essex University; while it's a good university and some of it's courses are rated very high in the league tables, it still has a certain image, and the kind of students whos parents will pay the £9k per year + living expenses and rent won't want to say they got their degree at essex when they go to their Conservative Youth conferences.

A degree is worth alot of money in the long run, but when the debt is around £40000, most people will look at this and just say it's not worth it. It's a huge amount of money to suddenly pile on someone. I know in America their fees are much higher, but at least in America there's a very good system of scholarships, and you know that uni costs that much so you save from birth. The next few years at least will be a struggle because the current 17-18 year olds didn't really have any warning about this. There was no chance to save.