"If we had to pay fees, we'd take it more seriously"

In the sometimes heated disputes about the abolition of university fees & their possible re-introduction the focus is generally on the effect that it might have on progression to university and on the issue of educational inequality. There has been relatively little discussion about how student behaviour might change.
The Irish Times has an interesting article by Roisin Ingle based around interviews with students in UCC and one theme that emerges is that students might take their courses more seriously if they were paying fees. Another theme was that while some students saw the merits in the re-introduction of fees there were very strong social pressures not to reveal this.
Of course one cannot infer anything from a few interviews like this but the article is nonetheless worth reading.