'Tis the season of whoops of joy and howls of despair. The arrival of A-level results triggers various forms of predictable, almost ritualistic, behaviour – and it's by no means confined to 18-year-olds. Each year, dyspeptic commentators line up to explain how the ever-rising scores reflect lowered standards and the decline of civilisation (largely false), while pin-striped spokespersons solemnly intone that it is all down to hard work and good teaching (mostly true).

But this year there is one major difference. This is the last year in which those English students lucky enough to get into English universities can think of themselves as being about to expand their minds and their horizons in ways that society believes to be valuable. Those who get their results this time next year, by contrast, will – we are told – think of themselves as narrowly focused consumers, searching for "value for money" among different forms of employment-directed training.

They will – we are also told – scrutinise the goods on the shelves (aka university courses), calculate the investment yield in terms of the ratio of price to likely future earnings, and complain to a consumer tribunal if the provision of their chosen course deviates in the slightest detail from what was promised in the sales catalogue (sorry, university prospectus). As a result – we are told this ad nauseam – future students will be more effective learners and universities will be more efficient "providers".

At least, that's how it will be if you believe the government's recent white paper on higher education, Students at the Heart of the System. These are the terms in which the government justifies taking a largely very successful system of higher education, throwing it up in the air, and hoping that the pieces fall in a pattern that can be regarded as a "market".

But there is, of course, no reason to believe any of these confident assertions. Other failings aside, they rest on a speculative and pretty unpersuasive view of human psychology, the root presumption being that people only care about anything if they are charged a lot of money for it. Well, it's only natural, isn't it – we'd all care more about our partners or spouses if we'd paid a large fee to a dating agency to introduce us, wouldn't we? We'd all love our children more if we paid a conception tax, a birth tax, and an annual earnings-related birthday-party surcharge.

So let's start from somewhere else. If you think that those who will be celebrating their university entry this time next year are going to get a better education than this year's crop, then you have been conned. The one certain change is that most of them will be saddled with a special additional tax for the greater part of their working lives. A very probable change is that in most universities more of them will be taught by temporary or part-time staff. A highly likely change is that in many universities there will be a reduced range of courses on offer. A possible change is that more students will be attending a for-profit crammer entitled to call itself a university and channel public money into its dividends.

It's true that if they go to the handful of "top" universities that will do well out of the new system they may not notice much change, except that a higher proportion of their fellow students will come from comfortable backgrounds. But if they go to the majority of universities, especially to those which in the past two decades have been the main vehicles for the great educational enfranchisement of people from social groups that did not previously go to university, then they will see signs of reduced resources all around them. In some cases their "student experience" may quite closely resemble their current social experience – boarded-up departments, dilapidated buildings, low morale, a resentful sense that the cards are stacked in favour of the few rather than the many.

Ah, but it's all because of "the deficit", isn't it, the need to reduce public expenditure? No, it isn't. Whatever view you take of this government's macroeconomic policy, the truth is that the new higher education system will not reduce public expenditure in the short or even the medium term. Indeed, the reason why the white paper now proposes a more centrally controlled system than at present – in terms of determining how many students with particular A-level results universities will be able to take – is because the government has belatedly realised that the new fees will otherwise increase public expenditure in the short term. In fact, the independent Higher Education Policy Institute, which published its analysis of the proposals this week, thinks the government is still underestimating the cost to the public purse of the new system. The measures are clearly being introduced for political reasons, to install the simulacrum of a market and to make universities serve the economy more directly.

With a brazenness born of ideology, the government claims that charging future students for what they used (largely) to get as of right is "empowering" them. It represents its proposals as "putting students at the heart of the system". But in reality, the only system these changes will put students at the heart of is the tax system. (It is ironic that in the same week there is news of the proposal in Germany to take exactly the opposite course and to give students tax rebates for their years of study.)

So, by all means rejoice in the success of those who have just learned that they will be going to one of England's (mostly high-quality) universities this autumn, but be aware that a new form of intergenerational injustice is about to take shape. Above all, be aware that if you believe "competition will drive up quality" in the new system, then you really have been conned – and not just about higher education.