In my opinion the Blair governments plan to make most people take a university education was specific plan to indoctrinate and brainwash the young and susceptible, as education establishments had for a long time been taken over by the left. It was an attempt to ensure ongoing political bias, and to build a foundation of power, it had nothing to do with education standards or increasing opportunities, what good is a media studies degree and a shit load of debt?
This I believe this is why the left are also against grammar schools, because they did work and opportunity was based on merit, turning lots of previously poor potential Labour voters into successes and Conservatives.
Then change the recruitment practices of public institutions like the police, NHS, BBC, etc to require only graduates (i.e. university brainwashed sheep) and the left takes over those institutions. Add in Common Purpose training and you can top up the brainwashing in the workplace, but mainly to ensure all these institutions comform to the same agenda.
I may not have articulated this very well, and some of you may think it is a "conspiracy theory", but I believe there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is exactly what has happened, and that it was by design