ON leaving university, I was hit with a sudden sense of fear as I encountered what had been an unknown entity for my 21 years of life – the ‘real world’.

But today, the Govern-ment’s plan to raise tuition fees has seen this feeling displaced by one of relief.

When I started university in 2007, the annual fee stood at £3,000, a sum that, like my weight, had risen almost ten per cent by my final year.

Add to your expenditure a weekly intake of supermarket label vodka, the odd doner kebab and the luxury of some half-decent toilet paper, and you are left with a daunting personal debt of £20,000.

Coming from a household of average income, the financial aspect was an unavoidable factor, but I believed it was a price worth paying for a three-year-long hangover.

Still, it will take me countless years to pay for the privilege of having a journalism degree, a more attractive CV and a few pictures of me in a silly hat.

It is therefore easy to understand the anger of prospective students upon reading the Government’s latest money-raising scheme.

Lord Browne’s review is expected to contain only a ‘soft cap’ on tuition fees of £7,000 per year – meaning that new students could be borrowing £21,000 to have the same life-changing experiences I did: watching Jeremy Kyle every morning and taking Southampton into Europe on a computer game.

But I did work hard and, although we are in the middle of a recession, I am delighted to be graduating at seemingly the perfect time – financially, for me at least.

I had fun, put in the effort and learned how to use an iron and cook a chicken but it still cost me the price of a new top-of-the-range Audi A3.

If the new proposals are pushed through I just wonder how many others will be able to afford an experience like that – one that we should all have the opportunity to enjoy.