Today's editorial piece by Polly Curtis in the Guardian's education supplement is a critical expose of the coded, cosy consensus that exists between Labour and the Conservatives to keep the issue of student tuition fees off the general election.

We should not be surprised, but students - and the wider public - should be outraged by contempt being shown for the court of public opinion.

We've been here before, though not many students will be old enough to remember it. It 1996, as the sun set on the last Conservative administration, the future of HE funding - indeed the future of higher education itself - was consigned to a 'Committee of Inquiry' chaired by the late Ron Dearing.

The Dearing Report set the policy landscape for the next decade and, crucially for the politicians of the day, kept the most contentious issues off the general election agenda. Today's political leaders are hoping for the same outcome, even if Lord Mandelson is determined that the incumbent government should survive.

We cannot let this happen. Until recently, university leaders have been complicit in this arrangement. They feared that a public row over increasing fees would jeopardise increased income.

In the past few weeks, however, some university chiefs have been willing to put their head above the parapet. Malcolm Grant, Provost of UCL, has called for a reform of the current system to make it a graduate tax.

New Universities UK President Steve Smith has made the funding of HE his priority. The new vice chancellor of Salford has welcomed NUS' blueprint for a form of graduate tax.

Polly Curtis' editorial today says: 'Only the National Union of Students has set out a detailed position – and not an easy one, considering their constituency – to back a graduate tax. The plans don't solve every conundrum, but they are the best start to the debate yet.'

I'm proud that NUS is leading the debate on funding, because it strengthens our fight for a fairer funding system and also presses home the case for the debate we deserve.

But we won't stop there. If Labour and Tory politicians won't make their case to the public, we will make ours. This autumn NUS is taking our 'Funding Our Future'  campaign to marginal seats across the country. We will make the public aware of what's at stake and rally communities to our cause.

The vision of a future where different universities charge different fees for different courses if not one in which access to university is defined by ability, but by ability to pay.

This stinks in principle and will be devastating in practice.

If Mandelson, Willetts or anyone else believe the case for a market in fees is so compelling they should make it. If not, they must urgently commit to reviewing alternatives and give students, and the general public, the debate we deserve.

Wes Streeting | National President
National Union of Students