British universities, 【C1】______ under the burden of a huge increase in student numbers, are 【C2】______ that the tradition of a free education is at 【C3】______ . The universities have 【C4】______ to impose an admission fee on students to 【C5】______ a gap in revenue if the government does not act to improve their finances and 【C6】______ some public spending cutbacks. The government responded to the universities' threat by setting up the most fundamental 【C7】______ of higher education for a generation, under a non-party troubleshooter, Sir Ron Dearing. One in three school-leavers enters higher education, five times the number when the last review took place thirty years ago. Everyone agrees a system that is feeling the 【C8】______ after rapid expansion needs a lot more money--but there is little hope of getting it from the taxpayer and not much 【C9】______ for attracting more finance from business. Most colleges believe students should 【C10】______ to tuition costs, something that is common elsewhere in the world 【C11】______ would mark a revolutionary change in Britain. Universities want the government to introduce a loan 【C12】______ for tuition fees and have suspended their own threatened action for now. They 【C13】______ Dearing's advice, hoping it will not be too late--some are already reported to be in financial difficulty. As the century 【C14】______ its end, the whole 【C15】______ of what a university should be is under the microscope. Experts 【C16】______ how much they can use computers instead of classrooms, talk of the need for 【C17】______ learning and refer to students as 'consumers'. The Confederation of British Industry, the key employers' organization, wants even more expansion in higher education to help fight competition on world markets from 【C18】______ Asian economies. But the government has doubts 【C19】______ more expansion. The Times newspaper agrees, complaining that quality has suffered as student numbers 【C20】______ , with close tutorial supervision giving way to 'mass production methods more typical of European universities.' 【C1】______