Are higher tuition fees desirable?

Are higher tuition fees desirable?

A commentary in The Joys of Teaching Literature:

If the State pays 90% of the fees at public universities, it means that ALL students get a scholarship (an implicit one) covering 90% of their expenditure. Maybe this is a kind of luxury we cannot afford without borrowing money from the Germans (or suppressing the provinces, or cutting the expediture on public health, or whatever). And maybe it has a nasty side effect, too, in making students less conscious about public money and public institutions (which are, after all “for free”). Perhaps getting them to pay a higher proportion of their fees, unless they qualify for a REAL scholarship, would be more reasonable, and a more intelligent use of public funding.