Critics can sometimes be stilled by the threat of a lost contract, or the offer of a well-paid job.

ECONOMIST: The Caribbean: Small states, big money | The

Running a well-paid job to sustain a middle-class life incurred pressures that never eased: you needed a bigger house, a better car, private schools for your growing children and shop accounts for your wife so that she looked good when business clients had to be entertained at your home.

ECONOMIST: Sloan Wilson | The

"In this highly-competitive graduate jobs market, new graduates who've not had any work experience during their time at university have little or no chance of landing a well-paid job with a leading employer, irrespective of the university they've attended or the academic results they achieve, " said Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research.

BBC: Work experience 'key to job hunt' for graduates

This points towards fees combined with an expanded loans system, or a graduate tax, whereby students would take out a loan and repay it if and when they got a reasonably well-paid job.

ECONOMIST: The battle-lines over university fees have been drawn

Why did George Shaheen, the well-paid head of Andersen Consulting, quit to take a job running a new on-line business?

FORBES: Side Lines

She gave up the well paid "boring" job in her hometown of Berkeley, California, for a full-time job with The Idea Village.

CNN: New Orleans' new arrivals: Young, educated and infused with hope