> Undergraduate tuition fees are over £9k a year (it was zero when I went to university 20 years ago).
That's wrong.
In 2000 the fees that the UK student had to pay was £1000 a year (£1700 in today's currency), and the government paid about £3000 - a total of £4000, or £6800 in today's money.
Students had to pay this upfront to study. In 2006 these upfront fees were dropped.