Talking to a group of parents of prospective students at lunchtime today. Several of them had children who were going to University this year (under the current fee regime) and also those going in a couple of year (under the new higher-fee regime). One of the discussions that we had was that, despite the increase in cost, they felt that they had to encourage all their children to go; it would seem “unfair” that the younger children missed out on university because of the fee change. I wonder if this will provide a smoothing effect on the transition to the new system – families with children who straddle this divide will feel it is unfair to be biased against the younger children going, and by the time we have gotten through such families, we will be at a point where the generation coming up have little idea of the old fee regime?