ALL A-LEVEL students should be made to study Economics to understand what they will be paying at university.

If I understand the state of play with university fees it is: From 2012 degree courses will cost students £9,000 a year, except where a university has opted to only charge £6,000; some courses may cost less, or you go to a Scottish university where you will pay a much lower rate, unless you don’t live in Scotland, in which case you’ll pay more, unless you come from the rest of the EU, then you will pay the lower rate, unless you are unfortunate enough to live in the rest of the UK.

They will be treated like non-EU residents and charged the higher rate. If you get rejected from your preferred university you may be able to pay more and still get in. Or you could wait until the last minute and be charged less.

So UK students at the same university could be paying different amounts. This is called creating a ‘market’ in education. For market read “chaos and confusion”.

Now they have sorted out higher education, our leaders are introducing market reforms to the NHS. I’m not optimistic.

Clive Tiney, Towthorpe Road, Haxby.