NEW TAXES are seldom greeted with delight.

But a welcome might actually be reserved for Labour's proposals today for graduates to be levied for as long as 20 years to repay at least £12,000 of the cost of their university education.

Why? Because the present system of funding students in higher education is unfair - particularly towards families in the lower and middle income bracket who face real hardship while supporting their children at college.

This stems from the means-testing limits on parental income for the existing student grants being set so low that only those from the least well-off homes qualify for a full grant.

The upshot is that a lot of severe financial pain is being felt for long periods in thousands of ordinary households, while immunity is granted only to the poor and, of course, the rich who can already afford to support their children in higher education.

It is an inequitable situation, added to by the present student loans system which sees many graduates leave college with considerable debt and only a short time in which to repay it.

Labour's plan would end that pain and unfairness - though it signals the end of the party's commitment to free higher education.

That departure, however, is hardly surprising given the rising number of students - it has almost doubled in the past eight years - and the consequent burden on the Treasury.

And Tony Blair may exploit this shift as a sign that New Labour is not afraid to confront hard choices on the welfare budget.

So the upshot, then, is a proposed tax on learning.

For though tuition fees would still be paid in full, the current grants system would be axed and instead students' living costs would be funded entirely through a loan which would be repayable over 20 years once graduate income reached a yet-to-be-fixed level.

This, of course, is better because not only is it the same for all, but also because it removes the hardship placed on the lower and middle income families by the discrimination in the current grants system.

Their children, of course, have to pick up the tab in the form of this proposed tax - though, technically, the loans would be repaid through National Insurance contributions.

But why not?

Most graduates go on to become higher earners in better jobs and the time span for paying back the loans is long enough to make the process almost painless.

And since, during their time at college, a lot of taxpayers on smaller incomes and in poorer jobs will have subsidised the students' passport to eventual prosperity, Labour can easily find a moral argument for scrapping free higher education too.

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