twiglett you do have a point - sort of.
But degrees do help you get a better job. The graduates I know have (on the whole) better jobs than non-graduates I know. There are obviously exceptions to this, but a degree is not a waste of time.
However, too many resources are being ploughed into universities in preference to vocational education and this stems from a terrible snobbery about vocational qualifications - A level 3 NVQ is supposedly equivalent to 2 A levels, but very few people actually consider it that. Equality will only come when attitudes change and, actually, part of that would include making more vocational subjects available as A levels and degrees.
I agree the 50% target is silly, but the govt is right to try to increase participation in higher education. Students don't have to get into debt for a degree in hairdressing, you know - they could just not go to university.
Finally (I could probably rant more but am tired) it's all very well to say that "social standing or the high school you went to should have no bearing on acceptance" but the fact is that it does have an effect: where positive descrimination policies do not exist, kids from the upper middle classes and private schools do get more places at university. But (and here's the rub) they don't actually perform any better (in fact, if you compare students who got the same grades at A level, they perform worse) at university because it turns out all that drilling and coaching through exams does not increase intelligence or ability to work hard. We do actually need a small amount of positive discrimination.