This is a consequence of Gordon Brown saying at least 50% of children should be able to go to university. If you have an education budget for higher education, and then send even more people there, then if you can't afford to educate them frpm within the budget, you have to charge them for their education instead.
There are so many kids getting a university degree, and then working in a shop, that it shows somethings going wrong. University should be for the brightest (I never went, so I'm not being elitest) and should be chargeable, but with bursaries for those that can't afford it. Now they are forcing universities to take kids from poorer backgrounds, and pushing out the brighter students, and that does nothing for the countries future. Too many kids went to university, and just partied the whole time, or dropped out and didn't work hard, and when they started charging, they worked harder because they were paying for their education, so charging has brought about changes, but £9K, and they're now talking about putting it up to £13K, it's getting ridiculous. There was a youngster on the radio yesterday that admitted that in about 5 years, he hadn't paid any of the his loan off yet, only managing to pay the interest, so most won't pay off their loans before they get wiped off, so yes it's not working properly.