Hello ten grand a year, goodbye optimistic new generation

Universities are struggling to survive in our current economic climate but charging students £10 000 a year is not the answer.

According to The Observer, the eagerly awaited report by Lord Browne on the future of higher education will announce that universities can start charging up to £10 000 a year for tuition fees. This would mean England would have some of the most expensive public universities in the world, according to analysis by the University and College Union (UCU). Browne's report has not been published yet and so we don't know the reasons as to why a steep rise in tuition fees is a good idea, but as a student I can say it would cause many to think twice about going to university.

I am not an unrealistic optimist, I know it would be difficult to remove tuition fees entirely and I am aware universities are really struggling under the huge cuts in government funding. Indeed, being a student is pretty miserable at the moment. Academics are losing their jobs, libraries are being closed, union shops are rapidly diminishing and courses are being removed from curriculum lists. Tell a seminar tutor they've got a really nice office or their specialist subject is especially enlightening and they'll grumble about how it won't be this way for long. As much as we'd like it otherwise, education and creativity needs money to flourish. But charging students more for the pleasure is not the answer.

As an arts student in my third year of uni I get five hours of contact time a week. I love university, but if we're basing it on education alone, for the price I'm paying, then I seriously consider the use of it. I'm paying £3290 a year for what? Another hoop to jump through essentially. Often I have thought about dropping out and attempting to make it in the 'real world' if wasn't so afraid of how it would affect my job prospects. Five hours a week doesn't feed my spirit or passion like education should do. I study English and I'd like to think I'm paying to be inspired, to see new avenues and worlds within a novelist's words by academics who are experts in their fields. Currently this isn't possible with the minimum contact hours and lecturers worried about their jobs. I'm just about ok with paying three grand for minimal education and a semi-decent CV but ten? Forget it.

Of course by hiking up tuition fees up to £10 000 a year, perhaps I'd get a much higher quality of education, but then it's unlikely I'd be there to enjoy it, because £30 000 worth of debt isn't especially inviting. And I certainly wouldn't be able to study with people from different classes or ethnic backgrounds. With more afro-Caribbean males in London Metropolitan university than in all of the Russell Group universities combined, studying at Leeds is already a predominantly white middle-class experience. If £10 000 becomes the charge, top universities could wave goodbye to any sort of diversity except that of rich international students. And with everyone the same, real creativity, discussion and varying outlooks on the world would soon be stifled.

We are the new generation Ed Miliband has been talking about. University could have a huge part in helping us become a brilliant new generation, but only if we think it is possible to reach the unreachable, not to be loaded down with debt.

I walked into the polling station on May 6 and attempted to reach the unreachable by crossing the box next to the Liberal Democrats. I was excited by a fresh approach to politics that the Lib Dems could provide and I agreed with their sentiments on tuition fees, Trident and civil liberties. Thousands of students did the same. Nick Clegg didn't mention students in his conference speech, nor did he bring up tuition fees. Now it looks like the deputy PM might let the Tories turn the university system into a giant version of Eton in which good education becomes an exclusive pleasure, rather than a right for all. Not the most promising outlook for those of us in the new generation who were hoping to set a new path in the way we embrace a new future.

So please think carefully Clegg and Cameron, our future is priceless not just expensive.