Thousands of students from English universities took to the streets last Wednesday to protest against the removal of a cap on university tuition fees costs.

Students from across various universities joined the campaign which sought to brand the higher education funding system, which could see some universities charging up to £15,000 per year as unfair.

The University of Wolverhampton Student’s Union encouraged students to write their debt on tags attached to helium balloons. Meanwhile, students from Durham, Northumbria and Newcastle universities assembled a banner indicating the average student debt over the Millennium Bridge in Gateshead.

Aaron Porter, Vice-President of the National Union of Students (NUS) higher education group, told The Journal: “The passion shown by thousands of students, demonstrates the dissatisfaction that is attached to the current funding system. In the run up to the 2009 review into capped variable fees, it is vital that students continue to stand up and reject any possibility of a lifting of the cap, and a halt to the marketisation of higher education.”

The protests were organised by the NUS, as a part of their "Students in the Red – day of action movement" included as part of their education funding campaign.

The campaign aims to pressure for what it sees as a fairer finance scheme for students across the UK, and also for a national bursary system to provide financial support based on how much students require, rather than their location of study.

Mr Porter said: “NUS is working on devising an alternative system altogether, which will ensure that any student contribution is collected in a fairer and more progressive way, rather than the unequal system that we currently have.”

In an report published earlier this year, Broke and Broken, NUS president Wes Streeting claimed: “Many [students] have witnessed with mounting dismay the growing consumerisation of education. They know instinctively that dividing up our limited resources through a market mechanism is wrong.”

The NUS report also states that the average student will leave university with a debt of up to £25,000, including the added interest. The annual charge to each account will be £950, meaning that graduates will need to earn £25,550 a year to counterbalance the interest before making any difference whatsoever to the original sum.

Mary Dobson,22, a third year student at Durham University who attended the protest in Newcastle, said: “The numbers were quite good. We were intending to just be on the bridge, where we hung a huge banner, and then someone suggested that we march though town. We marched with the megaphone, chanting about how education should be equal access. I think it was really effective in capturing imaginations. It's such a shame that awareness of this issue is so limited.”

The department for innovations, universities and skills defended the funding system, stating that it would not stop people from enrolling in university.