Students having trouble paying back loans 

This has been highlighted by the Student Loans Company, which shows that 150,000 more people have fallen below the £15 thousand income level required to begin paying back their loan within the last year.

At the moment over 700 thousand of the 1.3 million graduates who began their university courses in 1998 or later are not earning enough to pay back their loans and the wages of one quarter of these have never risen above the £15,000 barrier since they left university.

It is depressing that so many students are earning below what would usually be considered a graduate salary. This figure is bound to rise as the new cohort enters a tough jobs market.

In February, the Universities' Central Admissions Service revealed that, compared to 2008 figures, there has been a 7.8 per cent rise in the number of people applying for university places this year.