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Ahead of Thursday's vote on top-up fees commentators analyse the split within the Lib Dems and the effectiveness of student protests.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter [subscription required], arguing that otherwise student numbers will be slashed:

"With no apparent Plan B on offer, Universities UK has been looking at how the Government might respond. Put simply, the only possibilities involve either cutting what is left of the teaching budget or huge cuts in student numbers. We can see no alternative, given that cuts have already been allocated to the budget. Opponents of the fee increase believe they are being socially progressive, but the outcome would be exactly the opposite. The opportunity for a generation to progress via a university education would be slashed."

between laughing at the predicament the Lib Dems are in and fearing for future university students:

"The students are right to protest. A few are going about it stupidly, not realising that for every vandalised police van or smashed window, tens of thousands of lower-income taxpayers think - well, to hell with them. But this very public back-tracking on a key election pledge is a disaster for the Lib Dems. It is also a terrible time for higher education. And no, despite the risible side of the party's plight, very few of us feel like laughing."

that the tension in the Lib Dems is a natural part of their transition from a protest movement with a Parliamentary wing to part of the government:

"If I were Clegg, I would blow my nose, put 'wobble-gate' firmly behind me, and announce a three-line whip at Tuesday's meeting of his parliamentary party, telling this spoilt gang that they are no longer in the freshers' fair of meaningless pledges, but a party of government. The ditching of this pledge is indeed an almighty U-turn - leaving an ugly 'skidmark' on the tarmac, as Cable put it - and one for which the Lib Dems have already paid a heavy price in popularity. But that's government for you. Which would they prefer? The purity of impotence or the mess and opprobrium of power?"

Nick Clegg to get his party in line:

"This is the politics of infantilism. But instead of telling his party to grow up, Mr Clegg is apparently consulting his rank-and-file - before deciding whether or not to vote for a policy put together by one of his party's own ministers. Barmy or what?
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"The really perplexing thing is that - unlike his party members who are famously away with the fairies - Mr Clegg is supposed to be the realist who understands that political power necessarily entails hard choices. The source of the problem would seem to be that Mr Clegg has experienced a political panic attack."

that while students' power is limited their anger and revolt can prove contagious, just as the student Franklin McCain did when he entered a whites-only counter at Woolworths in 1960:

"[W]hile students can be the spark for the broader struggles ahead, history tells us that they are unlikely to be the flame itself. Students and the young might be the most likely to protest, but they are among the least likely to vote - if indeed they are even eligible to vote - and cannot withdraw their labour to any devastating effect. McCain's stand gave courage to the sharecroppers and domestic workers; the French students in 1968 bolstered the confidence of factory workers. The threat British students pose - much like the financial crisis bringing them on to the streets - is of contagion. That their energy, enthusiasm, militancy, rage and raucousness might burn in us all."

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