IT’S a big day for tens of thousands of young people as they shake off the freshers’ week hangovers and get down to the hard work.

There are bound to be feelings of excitement and trepidation for students and their parents as the academic semester begins, with the high cost of studying in 2018 doubtless contributing to worries for both parties.

Most families have to think hard about how to meet immediate expenses, while weighing up the long-term consequences of paying back loans when the average Scots student finishes their degree £12k in debt.

Thankfully, however, indeed crucially, they are spared the distress of having to factor in the £9,000 a year fees students in England have to pay, thus landing them with an eye-watering average loan of £32k.

The Scottish Government has always robustly resisted calls to introduce a similar scheme, despite opponents arguing the position is hypocritical, since further education places have been cut to fund the policy. Critics also say it puts Scots universities at a disadvantage in terms of funding, restricts their ability to invest and forces a cap on student numbers.

And, as front page of the Herald on Sunday highlighted yesterday, it seems a number of senior Scots academics agree with this view.

The Principal of one university, who did not wish to be named, decried “low” investment in higher education from the Scottish Government for a decade and called for a gradual increase in fees for Scots students. They also lamented the “lack of a safe space” to even explore the pros and cons of such a move.

Another executive team member at a top institution anonymously described free higher education as a “prop for the middle classes” and called for a national debate on how we fund our universities.

Now, I don’t doubt that these senior figures, whoever they are, have genuine concerns about funding –indeed, it’s their job to ask governments for more money.

But their reluctance to be open about their identity suggests an acute awareness of just how unpopular any change in the status quo would be.

And little wonder since a free university education is not only a principle that many Scots hold dear, but one of last crumbs of comfort Scottish families can rely on in these grim and uncertain times.

Normally I’m all in favour of national conversations, especially about the things that really matter. But in this case, I find myself drawn to the opposite response: now is definitely NOT the time to be having this particular debate.

At a time when many of us are already losing sleep over the potentially horrifying economic ramifications of Brexit, having suffered years of pitiful wage growth and the chipping away of conditions that followed the financial crash, do parents really deserve the worry of an additional £36k in fees should their children be bright enough to be offered a place at university? Young people, too, have enough on their plates dealing with the already costly chaos passed down by their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

And make no mistake, before long £9k a year (or indeed more) would be the reality. Those in favour of fees talk of a very gradual introduction at a low level, but as English students learned so brutally, such promises are easily thrown out with the bathwater alongside the principle of free education.

The fee brigade in Scotland (who come from both left and right) often talk of the continuing and shameful lack of young people from deprived backgrounds going on to university, and how free higher education subsidises the middle classes.

But it’s impossible to see how introducing £9k a year fees will help these young people, especially when you look again to the experience of English students: despite a massive hike in course fees over a short period, in 2016 maintenance grants for the poorest were replaced with, yes, you guessed it, loans. I speak from experience as the first person in my family to go to university and the recipient of a full grant (remember those?). I may still have decided to study had fees been in place, but I doubt I would have felt free to chose the academic path I did, one that enabled me to enjoy education for its own sake but also led me to the career I love.

I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given; what right have I to tell others they should not have the same? I don’t have kids, but I’m more than happy for my taxes to be used for other people’s to receive the same free education I benefitted from.

After all, free university education is not a subsidy but rather a societal choice that represents an investment in young people to be paid back over the long term in many ways, not just economically, but intellectually and socially, too. The whole of society benefits, as the likes of Germany, France and Denmark agrees, even if the rest of the UK doesn’t.

So, no, let’s not have this debate right now. Let’s defend and retain this important principle in our lives at a time when there is little else to celebrate.