A welcome sign that I am not as old as I feel

Is that when Chris Bertram writes that '[n]ot long ago, higher education was free', his 'not long' is longer than my entire adult life. I'd also note that the period of charging for higher education has also been a period of massive expansion in HE attendance, especially amongst women and ethnic minorities. So as an example of the way 'enclosures' are threatening our freedoms in the UK the case of HE works poorly.