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

Once Hwang is deemed to be a true defector and not a plant, he may even get a well-paid job as a senior adviser to the government, like he was in Pyongyang.

CNN: Journey's End

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

Should students pay through a tax which the government would collect from graduates, and use to fund universities or through loans which students would repay if they get a reasonably well-paid job?

ECONOMIST: The government is doing the right thing by universities

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

Yet, from looking at the students enrolled today, many are from outside the region (mainly, SE Europe) local nationals are more likely to go overseas for an education, or to take a ministry, banking, or other safe, well-paid job fed by energy wealth vs. starting a high risk new business.

FORBES: Why Have The Islamic Countries Failed To Develop Even With Resources Like Oil, While Countries With No Resources Like Switzerland Have Flourished?

The second case before the Lords concerned Kenneth and Julia McFarlane he a senior tax partner at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, she a well-paid solicitor before she gave up her job to look after their three children.

ECONOMIST: Divorce laws

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