The Spectator’s Notes | 16 October 2010

The idea that those who can should pay for their university education has taken more than a quarter of a century to become full government policy. Even now, in the week in which Lord Browne reports, people hate it. It is the first issue that I can remember where I came up against the ability of the well-off to defend themselves. In 1984, Sir Keith Joseph, then Secretary of State for Education, sprang the idea that parental contributions to their children’s university fees should increase, with the better-off paying more than the poorer. I was in my first few months of editing The Spectator, and the paper argued that this was a reasonable idea which should lead, in time, to universities being more independent of government. Auberon Waugh, then our weekly columnist, thought differently. ‘Perhaps I should declare an interest,’ he wrote. ‘Next year, Sir Keith’s reforms will cost me £4,000.