By Katherine Sellgren BBC News Online education staff

Students have repeated their opposition to paying more towards the cost of their university tuition, saying society as a whole benefits from their education.

Charles Clarke's speech did not distract students from their lunch

Students at University College London were speaking after Education Secretary Charles Clarke told delegates at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth that "top-up fees" were the fairest way to raise the necessary funds for higher education.

Mr Clarke said it was "reasonable and fair to ask graduates to contribute a proportion of the costs of the university education which they benefit from for the rest of their life".

But UCL students said this overlooked the fact that society needed educated professionals.

"Everyone needs doctors and even stockbrokers and so on because the wealth of our economy feeds down to everyone," said European, Social and Political Science student Mark Harper.

Katharine Lee: Society needs graduates

"People who earn a lot of money spend a lot of money and that filters down," said Mark.

Maths student Katharine Lee said critics should not just look at the gains education brings for individual graduates.

"I'm going to contribute to the health service and so on by having a professional job and paying my taxes - if no-one goes to university then who the hell is going to do that?"

Egyptian Archaeology student Nigel Harris believes students should pay nothing towards the cost of their university course.

"I don't think it's unrealistic that the economy should sustain this, it's perfectly possible, it's just party politics.

"Society benefits from education - teachers, doctors and so on - and I think it's naive of people to think students to go to university for a booze up for three years, that's rubbish. I don't think it's naive to expect society to pay," said Nigel.

Labour values

For maths student Alex Wilson, Mr Clarke's call for higher tuition fees is in direct conflict with socialist ideals.

Nigel Harris says it is not naive to expect taxpayers to cough up

"In my view it contradicts Gordon Brown's speech yesterday urging the Labour Party to get back to its traditional values - so get your heads together Labour!"

Paula Gonzalez said higher tuition fees would only deter the very people they were aimed at helping.

"What's the point of getting more students from poorer backgrounds into university by lowering their entry grade requirements if they're just going to end up having loads of debt to pay off?"

Danger of false hopes

Mark Harper said each degree had its own particular value and it was wrong to suggest that all students were tomorrow's high earners.

"Different courses mean different degrees which mean different pay packets," said Mark.

"There is a general conception that going to university leads to a big pay packet, but that is not always they way and so people can get into a lot of debt and then find they have little means of paying it off."

"Not everyone ends up working in the City earning lots of money," added Andreas Von Maltzahn.

Alex Wilson: Labour has lost its way

Languages student Ryan Harrison fears allowing universities to charge up to �3,000 a year for tuition could create a two-tier sector.

"There will be a divide in terms of those universities that people can afford to go to, which may in turn impact on the standards of the university," said Ryan.

For second-year English student Sarah Woodcock, Mr Clarke's solution to the funding crisis in higher education smacks of hypocrisy, especially given his past identity as president of the National Union of Students in the 1970s.

"It's unfair of him to introduce top-up fees when he had his education free," said Sarah.

"If he was a student now, he would be up there campaigning with everyone else - he's lost his way."