Vince Cable has had a bumpy six months and appears to have completely come off the road this week over the government’s university tuition fees policy.

When the government made its case for a £9000 ceiling on fees it said that only in ‘exceptional cases’ would the maximum be charged, estimating an average fee of around £7,500.

With the deadline for applications above £6000 earlier this week, it’s now been revealed that over two thirds of universities will look to charge the maximum. Estimates vary but this will mean an average fee of £8,700 and a funding black hole between £500 million and £1 billion.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to ministers. The National Union of Students, Labour and Liberal Youth, the youth party I lead, made it perfectly clear to the government that universities, facing an 80% funding cut and with a prestige factor to maintain, would charge as much as they could get away with.

I maintain my opposition to this policy. If the government sought to save money they have utterly failed. We now look set to have an absurd funding system which will charge both students and the taxpayers more.

With higher upfront fees underwritten by the taxpayer, declining graduate employability and a lower likelihood of repayment, we could have created a short term black hole this parliament, and a long term one in 30 years time.

Nonetheless, the government has three options to deal with high fees – Ed Miliband used the deadline on Wednesday to highlight one of them, claiming that the shortfall will lead to a 10%, or 36,000 reduction on student places.

Whilst Cable has said that places cuts would be an option to counter “collective over-pricing” he must surely want to avoid pouring gasoline on the fire of student anger.

My preferred option would be a wheel-squealing, skid mark burning, tyre-smoking, M1 stopping, airbag bursting, brake jamming U-turn. A really big one. The volte-face would be embarrassing, but at least it would start to repair some of the PR damage and avoid a long term funding deficit of the sort that would damage our future investment in higher education.

I suppose a man can dream.

Still, there’s the third option and it is genuine friendly advice.

Either make the Office of Fair Access (OFFA) a price regulator with teeth and the ability to reject and make enforceable demands on university fee applications, or take command and adopt a direct ministerial veto.

At present OFFA reviews applications for fee levels, but as David Willetts has admitted, it has no power to stop them charging what they like. Ministers’ risk becoming hostages of their own policy, condemned for tripling fees and then vilified for allowing university Vice Chancellors to fleece students for as much as they can.

If Cable wants to stop 9k becoming the norm he’ll do something about ensuring that his vision of a market with a cap and £7500 average fee comes about and is affordable.

A veto could transform the narrative. Cable argues that universities could avoid higher fees by cutting Vice Chancellor pay and perks, redesigning courses or offering shorter courses and is determined to ensure that wider access and students experience is improved but he can only retaliate by cutting funding or student numbers, both measures which would result in an outcry.

If he gave himself the ability to personally deny universities 9k fees unless they met such demands, he’d still be hated for raising them, but at least he could go Vice Chancellor bashing and ensure that Universities can’t ignore what he says.

I’d rather he turn around completely, but if he’s going to do this damn silly thing in this damn silly way I reckon taking the wheel is better than sitting in the back seat and driving into a wall.