THE world is full of expatriate Britons who, armed with a degree from a university, subsidised by the British tax payer, have found a new life and riches in a foreign country.

In this country graduates tend to land the top jobs. That's why the Government's plans to increase tuition fees is a brave and correct one.

Why should Mr and Mrs Soap have to pay for a student to achieve qualifications only to up sticks and start a lucrative career in computers in the USA?

The threshold at which graduates start to repay the fees is, at £15,000 annual salary, far too low, but it seems that some movement upwards will be made on this figure.

Perhaps if the Government lost its obsession with sending more and more students to university to study pointless degrees and concentrated more on using our colleges to develop truly vocational subjects, then the money would not be so tight.

Today's students do have a hard time and are saddled with debt. If they land a well paid job it is only right they should repay the tax payer, who has helped secure it for them; if they don't, then they won't repay the debt.