STUDENTS staged a dramatic protest yesterday against Tony Blair's plans to triple the amount they pay for a university education.

Durham University's Student Union, like others across the country, is furious at proposals by New Labour to introduce top-up fees.

Its members unrolled a huge "dam of debt'' from the Kingsgate Bridge, over the River Wear, to illustrate how students are already in debt through tuition fees the Government introduced in 1998.

Although Durham is seen as the home of wealthy ex-public school pupils, Student Union president Craig Jones said he estimated that at least 8,000 of it's 12,000 students had a combined debt of more than £102m.

He said the new top-up fees would triple the debt students face and be like a second mortgage.

He warned that students in future would only be able to take courses they could afford, rather than those they wanted or were suited to.

Durham University has already closed some departments and Mr Jones warned that this trend could increase under the proposals because of the emphasis on getting top marks for research.

He also warned that the Government had used the introduction of tuition fees to cut central funding of universities - despite saying they were needed to make up a funding shortfall - and could do so again with top-up fees.

"If our debt is £102m now, I dread to think what it will become. We know students are really cash-strapped at the moment and that's under a system that's only a third as bad as the one proposed."

He said there was widespread opposition, among students across the country, opposition parties and among 140 Labour MPs.

Mr Jones said his union would lobby local MPs, councils and take part in a mass lobby of Parliament.