Last week, there were plenty of important news stories across a variety of industries, ranging from the triumphant rescue of the Chilean miners, a story that evinced some welcome humanity after the devastation of the earthquake earlier in the year, to the farcical and protracted buyout of Liverpool Football Club by some businessmen to some other businessmen.

But the story that makes the most impact for our members is undoubtedly the decision to increase student fees, further pricing many out of a place at university. What are the impacts of this? Many argue that university has become devalued, and the importance of apprenticeships is only increasing. Myriad vice-chancellors have stated - and rightly so - that our higher education system is still among the most generous in the world, with countries such as America being obvious scapegoats as an example of the extortionate amounts of money it costs to further educate oneself; On Channel 4 news last week John Snow (and tens of thousands of others I would imagine) immediately countered with the fact that higher education used to be free and no longer is. Where do you stand?

Bonfire of the Quangos update: if you want the full list of axed quangos, click here. Should they all go? Should some of them stay? Should we be cutting funding in other areas of spending instead?

Let us know what you think.