"Perfectly happy to fund academic courses, ie, law, medicine, nursing, English, teaching, classics, maths, sciences, history, languages, etc., etc.. But if the dc want to do art, dance, etc., they know they can pay their debt."
Why? Why is art less useful than English, given art can potentially be vocational? Even nursing didn't require a degree once. And some might argue classics is as 'irrelevant' as dance. (I work with a dance graduate who tells me his degree was physically and academically demanding - he chose not to pursue a career in the field in the end.) I did a completely academic degree that has little immediate relevance in the world of work, but because it was a 'tough' subject and from a good university, employers don't mind. And what I studied was about 10% of the reason I wanted to go there - I actually picked a subject I'd never studied before because I felt like a challenge and didn't mind too much if only I got to go to where I wanted.
I feel sorry for those wanting to study in London. I really wanted to apply to LSE but realised the cost of living was prohibitive. A friend of mine had to drop out of UCL and restart at Salford for similar reasons.