I never really thought Tony Blair was a good or even an interesting speaker though apparently most of the country did. I am however interested in the ongoing debate for paying for university education on the basis that what is paid is a small percentage of the increase in salary a university graduate may expect to earn over the period of their career. This is not the relevant equation to make because this equates education to money.
The correct equation is to place education beside civilisation because our civilisations rest upon the quality of the education, and for that read the ability of trained minds, within the population. The entirety of the Enlightenment was created by those seeking knowledge, in tandem with those seeking money. To turn away one mind, or to have to bring in a series of new measures to assist the poor, is to betray all the values of a rounded education because knowledge is earned in a way money can never be. Knowledge is far more important that fiscal policy, and far more relevant to the future of the human race than profit and loss.
We think when one person avoids education because of the costs it is only their loss. That is the selfish thinking of the money world. It is a loss to every one of us to lose the full potential within one mind.