London Students Protest Over Tuition

Thousands of protesters marched through London today to protest the latest hike in British university tuition, as hordes of police watched and guided them. Four thousand officers were deployed to police a crowd that they pegged at 2,000-strong, but that organizers estimated contained closer to 10,000 people. The demonstrations were largely peaceful, but police arrested 24 people, most for breach of the peace and similar offenses, the AP reports.

At one point, the protesters tried to take a page out of the Occupy Wall Street playbook, setting up more than 20 tents in Trafalgar Square, but police quickly took them down. Indeed, organizers had planned to join their march to the Occupy-style protest camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, but riot police blocked their path. Protesters were expressing their displeasure with plans that would triple tuition. "It will mean that education is only for the rich," one protester said. "It should be for everyone." (More Britain stories.)