Since the loan repayments are so low, it ends up being a regressive graduate tax: the less you earn, the more you pay over your lifetime.

It's also the first move in privatising the public debt as a form of balance sheet misrepresentation. Rather than have the government borrow £40k, make the students borrow it instead.

I have the opposite worry: that degrees that don't lead to well paid jobs will be taken up only by the children of the well off, and the idea of university as an academic rather than vocational institution will be corroded.