Students confronted Con-Dem ministers yesterday over their plots to sell their debt at "mates rates" to City sharks.

A noisy rally was staged at the doors of Vince Cable and David Willetts's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in opposition to the government's latest privatiation.

Students also made their point loudly outside Downing Street as they marched through London from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

It was the climax to a busy week of protests on campuses across Britain organised by the Student Assembly Against Austerity.

SAAA spokesman Aaron Kiely told the Star: "We're already saddled with a huge amount of debt from the trebling of tuition fees and students are feeling the squeeze as the cost of living goes up.

"We know what privatisation means, it means private companies will do all they can to maximise the amount of profit they can get."

Chancellor George Osborne is expected to fire the gun on the sell-off of loans taken out between 1998 and 2012 during his Budget speech on March 19.

And cardboard replicas of the Tory Chancellor's red box were thrown on activists laying on the floor to show how the sale will pile more debt on students.

Mid Kent college student Charlotte Bennett wants to study for a history degree and become a teacher but is worried by the backdoor fee rise.

"It's already going to work out at £39,000 and if they sell off student loans the debt is going to be ridiculous," she said.

"I'll never be able to pay it back at the rate teachers get paid anyway.

"I have friends who are deciding not to go to university because of the amount of debt they are going to get into."

The demonstration was bolstered by a group of young Green Party members from across Europe who were in London for a conference.

London Green member Benali Hamdache warned that the student debt sale would be at "cheap rates for Tory mates."

"We saw with the Royal Mail sale that they are willing to sell off assets at bargain basement rates. This is the subsidisation of private profit."