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CRemember the simpler times of 2018: Avengers: Infinity War was released. We had the #MeToo movement. The Internet gave birth to “Big Chungus”. There was a royal wedding that everyone was delighted with forever.

Alongside these major events, I was turning on fairy lights in a room that looked a lot like a prison cell and learning that anything can become a stir if you believe in it. That is, I went off to college.

Four and a half years later and two degrees down, I stopped being a student. Nine months later, in September 2022, my student debt stood at £72,800. By November 2023, it had risen to £76,100. In June this year I owed £81,500. This week Keir Starmer decided to increase tuition fees by 3 per cent, and I now have just over £84,000 in student debt.

That’s £12,000 in interest over three years, none of which I spent on a seminar hall or slightly ruined student union. And the best part is that it will continue to increase.

For a fun and not at all painful exercise, I decided to calculate the daily cost of my college degree, based on what I owe now. If you take four years with 39 weeks of teaching each, the golden figure comes to £538 per week. That’s £108 per day. And it’s £108 a day NOW – but this will increase exponentially until age 53. At this point the interest charged will have ballooned my total debt to a whopping £217,250.

Do you hear this noise? It’s the sound of students from Scotland, Germany, Norway, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, France, Finland and Austria laughing at us. It’s embarrassing.

As tuition costs and student loan interest continue to skyrocket, the chances of future generations paying off their debts are even slimmer than before. In my office we play a fun game of comparing our debts; one of my colleagues happily announced that he only owed £69,000. Hooray! I suspect the government knows exactly what we lowly graduates have always known; recovery time will never happen. So why continue the charade?

I would like to know where the enormous amount of money that students pay for their higher education actually goes. My four years at university were stressful. I had a great time, but I could see that courses were underfunded, courses were lost and modules were cancelled.

Every year there were teachers’ strikes, meaning I was sometimes paying over £100 a day for learning nothing. My master’s degree was delayed by six months, by which time I had signed a lease on a house; so before starting the course, I took a really miserable job at a tech company, which only added to my stress.

Even now that I have left university, the woes in higher education continue. Teachers’ strikes are still ongoing, their number being reduced; and there has been a huge problem with student accommodation due to RAAC concrete, meaning more students are having to leave campus and move into private accommodation.

Last month, President Biden canceled $4.5 billion in student debt. America is a country that likes to make money, so that was something. Has socialist Starmer followed suit? Of course not. For a politician who values ​​social mobility, he seems intent on dissuading millions from studying to find meaningful employment, for fear of living in debt for decades.

My student loan has become a constant companion – and in a way, its presence is almost a comfort. I can see him growing up, like a child, or a horrible feeling of dread. Maybe when my debt finally disappears in 2052, I will feel a sense of loss. Maybe I’ll have a funeral for it, which would cost about the equivalent of seven months of college tuition. Haggle.