I am concerned that the university fees hiatus is being almost sidelined by the conflict between various element of the Liberal Democrats, while the Conservatives are trying to push through an unprecedented increase in fees at a time of belt-tightening all round.

The Conservatives are making the most of recommendations made by Lord Brown, who has had nothing to do with education needs or costs.

An increase to double the fees would have been bad enough, but to treble the cost is quite extraordinary at this difficult time.

The Conservatives are quite happy to lend the students the money now, when they claim every pound is vital, for the students to repay the loans many years into the future, well beyond the time when the country was to have balanced the books.

So why now? Sad to say I think that the Conservatives, opportunists to the last, are trying to bundle this through while they still have the divided support of the Lib Dems.

They claim they are trying to encourage the number of students from poorer backgrounds, but this is not supported by the facts. Thanks to Labour there have been many more students going to the best universities from ordinary backgrounds. As the Conservatives are well aware, many thousands of those students will be disinclined to take up these costs.

The students have done all that was asked of them, achieving qualifying university grades, but are confronted with a dilemma they did not expect – being presented with a bill that was not even hinted at when they started their studies. There is a word for this, deceit.

The less well-off students are sensibly now not prepared to put there lives into hock for the sake of a very biased chancellor. Many will not be prepared to risk their financial future and incur all that extra debt and then hope they will be able to get a job, any job, all the time the debt being boosted by all the additional interest incurred, then to obtain a sufficient salary to make repayment possible. Would a bank, or anyone, lend money on that premise?

This, I feel, was part of the government plans – they want to reduce university numbers, which they feel are unjustified in the current climate.

How can the government now blight the educational process after the massive funds spent on education over the last 13 years?

The government has used our current financial plight as a means of raising these fees, yet it will increase short term debt and for the foreseeable future.

Our students are not stupid. They can see the deception and the broken promises of the Liberal Democrats. They claimed they would not support any increase in fees and, at the first test, now in coalition, they have followed the Conservatives like lambs, and, like lambs, they will get slaughtered at the next General Election.

Nick Hume, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg can’t agree to support their pre-election promises.

Can politicians have any idea of the hurt they are putting on the students, is it surprising they are protesting in the streets?

Unless the proposed increase is rethought the consequences will be large for the coalition parties, the fallout as much as for Margaret Thatcher’s property tax, which she levied but did not take into account owners’ ability to pay, or in this case, the ability to borrow.

Peter Harper, Southampton Road, Ringwood