UNIVERSITIES should be be able to charge up to £12,000 a year for magic beans, according to a major review of higher education funding.
The review, chaired by Lord Browne, calls for the current fee limit of one cow to be scrapped, allowing the best universities to set their own bean tariff.
Under the proposed system the universities will be able to approach prospective undergraduates on their way to market and offer them a small bag full of beans in exchange for the family cow, plus another £33,000 to be paid with interest until they die at their desk.
They will also give the student a full colour leaflet explaining why the beans are magic.
After three years the student will plant the beans, wait to see if they grow into a beanstalk that leads them to a golden egg-laying goose or chicken and then move back in with their parents because there is no such thing as magic beans and the world’s goose population is controlled by small Chinese computers.
Lord Browne said: “If you meet a person who believes that your beans are magic then it is only reasonable that you should be allowed to take as much of their money as you can possibly get away with.
“I don’t see how this is unfair to anyone except idiot teenagers.”
The Confederation of British Industry welcomed the review insisting it would ensure that UK companies have a world class supply of ambitious, energetic young people who had paid £36,000 to never really understand Wordsworth or Marxism.
Meanwhile Sir Roy Hobbs, vice chancellor of Reading University, said he was excited by the proposals, adding: “We are about to discover if there is anyone monumentally cretinous enough to pay £12,000 a year for some magic beans with the words ‘media studies’ written on them.
“I suspect we’ll do just dandy.”
