I'm a student, and I don't see the problem with raising tuition fees to be honest - if you want something that is a serious investment in your future, then you should have to pay for it - when I graduate and start work I don't want to have to pay taxes towards a few million people who are studying some wishy-washy subject at uni because they just don't want to start work yet! You still don't have to pay any more up front so it really is a future investment, and statistically you're likely to end up in a much better paying job with a degree than without, allowing you to pay off your student loan. Even in the event that you don't end up in a better paying job, you don't have to pay it below a certain salary threshold (around 23k ish from what I can remember), and once you get to a certain age, the debt gets written off. I really don't see what the massive fuss was about this!
For what it's worth, I've had 7k a year of debt from the government (3.5 for tuition fees, and the rest for maintenance) for the three years of my undergraduate degree, and then I've used savings from previous jobs and a part time job to pay for most of the rest. Next year for my masters I'll be having to borrow about 9k to pay for my course, so I'll be leaving uni with roughly £30k of debt. Sounds a big investment, and it really is, but I'm confident that my degrees will allow me to earn more than I would otherwise have throughout my lifetime!