Well of course it will be more than £21,000, won't it? £21,000 is the current guess of how much university graduates will owe by the time they've got their degrees.

That's taking into account their living costs for three years, plus the universities' possible top-up fees of £4,000 a year.

Experts reckon it could take nearly 30 years to pay back the debt.

But it will take longer, because students will borrow more. And who can blame them?

My generation of students - which includes most of the government - never got into debt because we were simply not allowed to. We had no loans. Banks wouldn't give us overdrafts. The idea of giving students credit cards was laughable.

So we made do. We bought our clothes at Oxfam, made a pint last an hour and lived on beaked beans on toast.

Today's students - before the increased fees - know that when they leave uni they're going to be in debt for around £10,000. Meanwhile, banks are pushing money at them - overdrafts and credit cards, tantalising offers.

So why not make the most of them? I mean, if you're going to be in debt to the tune of £10,000, then what's £50 for a night out? £100 for a designer jumper? Even £500 for a holiday? Add it to the overdraft and worry about it in ten years' time.

This government has not only given young people massive debts, it has also given them - far more tragically - a completely cock-eyed view of money. And one day, when everyone's in debt up to their eyeballs, the whole system is going to implode very messily.

The exceptions, of course, are those parents who can easily afford to pay their children's massive fees for them. Again, like most of the government...

Ironically, when we had grants and were supported by the state, we had to live within our means because there was nothing else.

Now the vast majority of students are living in cloud cuckoo land, where they never have to do without or save up or wait for anything they want, because there is always money available to borrow.

But sometime it will have to be paid back - at the same time as they're trying to buy over-priced houses and saving for their pensions.

We've already been told that this generation will probably have to work until they're 70.

At this rate, they'll be lucky to put their feet up by the time they're 95.

Never cared for Matthew Kelly. "Tonight Matthew..." was always enough to make me switch off sharpish.

But now I'm thinking again.

Since Matthew Kelly was pulled in between panto performances to be questioned about child abuse allegations from 30 years ago, his friends have been rallying round.

Yesterday, a whole host of them - including Julie Walters, Alan Rickman, Miranda Richardson and Pete Postlethwaite, all people with their own reputations to lose - issued a letter singing his praises, describing him as "gentle and caring man" and recording their "pride and pleasure" in knowing and working with him.

It is a great gesture of loyalty and - if Kelly is proved to be innocent - will do a lot to blow away the smoke of scandal that would always surround him.

It's what friends are for - and they've done him proud.

Maybe, just maybe, I've been wrong all these years.

Michael Owen has lost £40,000 in gambling in the last few years. Gulp - enough to see two people through university.

But he earns more in a week than most of us earn in a couple of years. To him, £40,000 is not much more than half a week's wages - hardly a dreadful amount over a few years. He earns silly money, he spends silly money. All things are comparative.

Anyway, he has been such a golden boy. Steady girlfriend, good to his mum, close to his family, Never involved in drunken brawls or thrown out of nightclubs, that it's almost a relief to discover that he's human.

And as bad a judge of horses as the rest of us.

Overworking is the new British disease. Too many of us are working too hard, too often, too long. Women's working hours are soaring.

Maybe that's because we're trying to support our student children..