The winds of change are finally blowing through campuses after years of unbridled expansion. Vice-chancellors are rattled. For the first time since 1998, when a Labour government made UK students pay towards their university degrees — and successive governments went on to make them among the most expensive in the world — someone is calling time on the great market experiment.

The review chaired by the former investment banker Philip Augar plans a deep cut in the £9,250 annual tuition fee as well as a transfer of money and students from degrees in universities to new vocational courses in further education (FE) colleges. Many believe that the proposals, expected in the new year, are overdue.

What the UK lacks, we are told, are young people