If you needed further proof that education has become little more than a commodity, then the news that Ucas is selling access to millions of students to advertisers might just be it. Leaving aside for a moment the murky moral implications of sending advertising from private companies to children for the purposes of profit (and they are children – the vast majority of those applying to university are under 18), there's also the fact that prospective students' hands are being forced.

Yes, you can opt out of receiving the digital marketing emails, but only by also agreeing to miss out on the education and careers newsletters, too. "We help them reach uni – we help you reach them," Ucas reportedly tells potential advertisers. It's as calculatingly unscrupulous as it is depressing.

As a nation, we've long stopped believing unquestioningly in education as a sacred right that should be available to all, but these revelations are shocking nonetheless. It seemed, for a while, that the balance was shifting. If students were to become consumers – customers, even – then they should have the right to complain when they didn't feel they were getting their value for money. I imagined a TripAdvisor for universities would emerge, where students could vent their departments' shortcomings and rate the level of education they were receiving. Had I been forking out nine grand a year, I certainly would have contributed. "It's been two years and still haven't met my personal tutor," I would have typed. "Office hours vague and unpredictable (every third Wednesday for 20 minutes only). Oh, and my core courses all clash." As it was, I wasn't that arsed, but then the government was paying my £1,200 fees.

It would have been nice to have seen some power handed back to students, but private companies are, sadly, always one step ahead. When you pay Ucas a fee for processing your application, you're also paying to be advertised to, which might include being sent an energy drink if you're lucky enough to be considered one of those "trend-setting early adopters".

I don't know about you, but such marketing speech makes my skin crawl. We've become used to the idea of children being advertised to, particularly on television and also, increasingly, online, but the idea of advertising to them at school is still controversial.

Even as a teenager I knew instinctively it was wrong. It was about 10 years ago that the first advertising posters cropped up at my school, in the corridors and canteen, advertising films and junk foods. Prior to that we had been using Pepsi-branded exercise books, but the posters were a step too far. The 6th form did a petition and was duly ignored.

What companies such as TenNine, a firm specialising in such posters, flog to advertisers is an audience and, as George Monbiot pointed out last year, that audience is a captive one. "Our high-impact platform delivers right to the heart of the 11- 18-year-old market," claims TenNine's website. "Your clients' messages have the potential to be seen by over a million 11- 18-year-olds every day." Withholding careers and education information from children who don't want to be marketed to makes this audience similarly trapped. It might not be illegal, but Ucas is abusing its privilege as the only applications service, and that certainly does not look good.

On hearing about its antics my first reaction was to shrug – there's an opt out, so what's the problem? But then I thought about how strange it was that a university admissions service should be referring to itself as a brand, and that a whole generation of cash-strapped students should be viewed as little more than a marketing opportunity, and I realised just what it was that makes the Netherlands so eminently appealing to so many. Aside from the weed, cheap beer, low fees and the enviable amount of contact time, the focus is also, amazingly, on getting an education, rather than a Red Bull.

• This article was amended on 17 March 2014 to clarify that Ucas does not sell contact details of its subscribers to private companies but does send targeted advertising. The subhead was also changed to better reflect the article.