So far, the Government has paid three-quarters of the operating costs, plus all of the infrastructure costs. The undergraduate pays only 25% of the operating costs and that is just the operating costs of the undergraduate education. If, over the next few years, still more university students make it to university, and if we want to improve the quality of their education further, then we need to adjust this balance. It is not to put all the load on the student, but to shift the balance to something which is more sustainable. The Government will still account for a big part of the university costs through its subvention. But I think, proportionately, it should be a smaller part than now.

Dr John Chen said that graduates pay higher income tax and therefore they benefit society more than the individual. Therefore, there is no need to charge them more when they go to university. He has a point. We need to pay for this university education and I suppose we could raise income taxes to meet the higher costs of more people going to university and more expensive per capita cost. But not all high income earners are graduates. So why should a non-graduate who has done well pay more income tax to finance the education of graduates? He did not benefit, why should you tax him the same? But Dr John Chen has a point. If we follow Dr John Chen's argument, then we should have a graduate tax, which I think is what Mr Iswaran suggested and is similar to what the Australians do. We can consider this, although I am not absolutely sure Dr Chen would prefer it.

MOE will study this problem carefully. We are not making any sudden changes. We have said, no adjustments this year, and even if we have adjustments next year and beyond, this will be phased in gradually over several years. This is a long-term problem, not an immediate one.

We would ensure affordable financing arrangements. There will be scholarships, bursaries and loans available to all students. The loan repayments will be reasonable. We are not out to bankrupt you, to squeeze you, or to profit from you. We just need to recover the costs, and you have a whole working life to pay back, and we will work out repayment terms so that you can afford to get married early, have a flat, have your babies, and not have to say - "I have to pay back my study loans, I cannot afford two babies."

Mr Low Thai Khiang, of course, made a political point of this and accused the Government of intending to treat foreign students better than our local students when we revise the university fees. He has made up a fictitious scenario and twisted the facts. The Government will always treat Singaporeans better than foreigners. In fact, that was one of the principles when we talked about the baby procreation incentives, and one of the things which we are going to study as to how we can make this distinction clearer. But as far as university education is concerned, the distinction is already there because under the Tuition Grant Scheme, foreign students pay 10% more than locals in school fees. If school fees go up for the locals, they are going to go up for the foreigners too. There are even a few foreigners who pay a 100% fee with no tuition grant. I asked why they did that. The answer was: if you have a tuition grant, there is a three-year bond to work in Singapore. We do not give away our money for free and, least of all, do we give away money for foreigners at the expense of Singaporeans.