It's Crunch Time. They are at the gates, keep the barricades up!

I'm sat in the office with students marching past, towards Westminster, making their point about tuition fees. I understand their concerns, I would rather not start my career with up to £40,000 of debt. It sounds immense, horrible and off-putting.

For a while I've thought that a graduate tax was the way to go. I made a post about it here not so long ago. I knew there were difficulties with a graduate tax, but hoped they could be overcome. I read today that a graduate tax would only provide enough income for the numbers of students we have in 2041. This has lead me to think again.

Although the debt sounds large, I quite like the fact that you will only pay when you earn over £21,000, at 9% per month for a maximum of 30 years. If your income drops then your payments stop. I also like the fact that Universities will be free to charge varying amounts - create more of a market, and giving conscientious students real bang for their buck.

Of course, this would not have been necessary if only 20% of young people went onto University - similar to when I went. The ridiculous target of 50%, arbitrarily set (why not 75%? or 100%?), set the current train in motion. We now have thousands of students graduating every year without the chance of getting their dream job, and unemployed because they are over-qualified for opportunities at the job centre. In the new system, they will have to pay back nothing! What a ludicrous situation.

If I was having a go a changing the system, I'd keep the tuition fees at an increased amount. Turn most of the new Universities back into Modern Technical Colleges (rather than call them Polytechnics), make them provide vocational and on the job training at a reduced rate of tuition fees. I'd scrap the 50% target, and reduce University places to roughly half their current number.

It's time students learn that there is no such thing as a free education. We all pay through taxes. Is it fair for a dustmen to pay for a Lawyer's tuition? A little maybe, but not the lot. When the lawyer is on £250,000 a year, it makes sense to make her pay some of that back.

Tonight Nick Clegg faces the vote. I've been pleasantly surprised that he has grasped that the Lib Dems were idiots for making such a stupid pledge in the first place, and now have a duty to the coalition and good Government. This whole process has taught the subsection of serious minded people in the LDs a few facts in life, and they have grown up fast.

Right, must go outside and make my point directly. Although, I quite like my new teeth.

Squiffy.