Because Labour created an unsutainable situation as a way of falsifying unemployment figures.
They advocated that 50% of youths would be degree educated. How is this affordable ? How if it even practical when 50% of the job market is not graduate level.
Courses such as nursing were made degrees with no benefit to anyone.
I seem to remember grants being abolished pretty much the day Labour got in? Fees followed later (and were massively increased by the tories more recently).
Labour grew the public sector and created 1 million jobs in this area, which were never required. They did this by bringing in pointless laws and red tape. I mean to you really need to go on a Health and Safety course to use a ladder ?
I blame no win no fee lawyers and the Americanisation of our legal system for that. Have you had an accident at work because you were given the wrong ladder? Then get the right ladder you feckin retard! Oh, but how do we know what is the right ladder to use unless we are trained? The training gets rid of the lawsuits, I place the blame wholly on peoples stupidity and lawyers greed.
They inherited a very strong economy in 1997 and yet managed to make a total mess of everything. The strength of China and growing global econonmy which was keeping everything in balance without them having to do a do great deal.
Yet they failed to set asside any money, they lived on debt they wasted and squandered trillions on off balance sheet debt like PPI.
In all this time more sensible economies such as Australia realised how good they had it and took the opportunity to pay off their national debt.
They would have been in a much stronger position had the tories not sold off the water, gas, electric, telecoms etc. not to mention the council houses. The values of these are massive now, the energy companies make billions every year as do the telecoms and now we pay billions each year to keep tenants on benefits in private accommodation. The smart move would have been to keep them, and reap the benefits.
Of course Labour then went on to do the same with schools (academies), hospitals are coming soon and isn't the royal mail up for sale (although that is not doing well thanks to the stupid rates forced on it for doorstep deliveries for competitors)? Not that I really call the shower of bastards we had in last the Labour Party, they were just diet tories really.
Now we have an even newer group of pillocks who can't quite work out what to do, the coalition will start to fall apart soon and if it happens sooner rather than later then Labour are going to get back in, and we'll have a wallace and gromit puppet as our prime minister.
None of which is really relevant to university fees, but you can bet your arse they will continue to rise. Can you claim back fees paid when teachers strike/don't show up?