Several decades ago I sat in the refectory at Goldsmiths, University of London, wearing a dirndl (the horror!), observing achingly hip girls and boys in slashed jeans and Dr Martens boots, while dance students pirouetted across the oak floor and ate their lunch en pointe. It felt like a creative hub where the possibilities might be endless. It was my first open day. I had found my tribe.
My parents didn’t attend. There was no expectation that they ever would. It wasn’t the way then. But now, with students leaving university with extraordinary debts extending for half a lifetime, very much more is at stake. Since the introduction of fees and — dare I say it — a more over-protective, over-ambitious generation of parents, more
