It doesn't have to be this way

Students are back on the streets tomorrow, fighting for the future of education.

It is two years since 50,000 people packed the streets of London to oppose the trebling of tuition fees and education has gone into reverse at every level.

Undergraduates who started university this year face the highest public tuition fees in the world.

For those students whose desire to learn outweighs the prospect of a £9,000-a-year tuition bill, the student loan no longer covers the cost of accommodation.

Another failing market experiment is being inflicted on postgraduate study.

Universities across Britain are allowed to charge postgraduate students as much as they wish in tuition fees, and the only funding available to postgraduates are crippling commercial loans from high street banks.

And in England the education maintenance allowance has been cut, putting yet another barrier between millions of learners in further education and the better future they are working so hard to achieve.These are just some of the results of reforms that were called "fair" and "sustainable."

Since Tony Blair's government introduced tuition fees in 1998 Westminster politicians of the three major parties have taken steady steps towards creating today's sorry state of affairs.

But the alternative is clear - delivering high-quality further and higher education that transforms lives without a price tag.

Governments all around Europe are continuing to do exactly that despite a crisis in capitalism that is engulfing our continent.

Even within the borders of the British state governments have been able to take a more progressive approach to student support.

Tuition fees in Northern Ireland have not risen in the wake of Westminster's decision to treble fees in England, while the Welsh government has moved to waive tuition fees over £3,465-a-year for Welsh domiciled students, wherever they study.

And the Scottish government has taken a principled decision to completely cut tuition fees for Scottish-domiciled and EU students.

By doing so, Scotland has aligned itself with the strong social democracies of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, where higher education comes with state-funded grants and without tuition fees.

In Sweden there are no fees for home and EU students at any level of study and 70 per cent of students receive a grant.

It's that A-grade Scandinavian system that delivers both world-beating education and more equal societies.

Added to that, in Austria, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and the majority of "lander" (states) of Germany, there are either no tuition fees for home and EU students or no tuition fees for the majority of students.

And in France the cost of an education is just a one-off tuition fee of €177 (£142) at undergraduate level, €245 (£197) at masters level and €372 (£299) at doctoral level.

This is effectively an administrative cost and goes mainly towards providing on-campus healthcare and student services.

Even Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing government maintained these very low, one-off tuition fees in addition to providing maintenance grants of up to €4,140 (£3,330), depending on a student's social background.

Compare that to England, which has 300,000 fewer students but still charges them bank-breaking fees.

This is simply because the government spends far less of the country's GDP on higher education.

Somehow we have sleepwalked into a world where wars and vanity projects like the Olympics have replaced education at the top of the agendas of successive Westminster governments.

This is why tomorrow's demonstration isn't simply against £9,000 fees or an excuse to make hilarious placards about Nick Clegg.

It is about putting education back where it should be - as a priority for any government that's serious about both a strong economy and just society.

As one Labour MP put it recently, Britain faces a choice "between US barbarism or Scandinavian social care."

But Labour's laughable policy of reducing tuition fees to £6,000 a year shows that England, at least, is still headed for a free-market driven US-style education system.

Progressive campaigners who believe in education as a means of transforming society have lost a lot of ground over the past decade.

The only way to start making up that ground is for campaigners to get back on the front foot and start campaigning for a free education future, rather than mobilising once every few years in a last-ditch attempt to stop even higher fees.

While the 2010 demonstration against higher fees sparked further waves of action against this rotten Con-Dem coalition, tomorrow's mobilisation marks something bigger.

Tomorrow is just the firing gun for what must be a concerted campaign to convince the public that education must be put back at the top of the government's agenda.

The alternative could not be clearer for all to see. With France as an example for England and Scotland an example for Wales and Northern Ireland, all can aspire to a fairer education system.

It's an alternative that will benefit everyone in society and throw open the doors of universities and colleges to their communities across Britain.