Two higher education stories on the BBC web site this morning. According Higher Education Statistics Agency, there was a 8.6 percent increase in first-year students over last year.

But the Higher Education Funding Council for England said there was severe inequality in where all those freshers come from. According to their chief executive, “more people went to university between 1994 and 2000, but the percentage of poorer students had ‘hardly changed at all’.”

Oh, and the Economist says it’s the foreign students who are paying for all this.