Ones to Watch is thrilled to announce the first runner-up in our writing competition, run in conjunction with guardian.co.uk, is Lucy Snow.

Lucy is a third-year BA English student at the University of Leeds and is features editor of Leeds Student, and has previously written columns for the i Newspaper, after entering their iwriters competition.

Her entry, written in answer to the question ‘With fees tripling to £9,000 a year at most universities, is it inevitable that the student will become a consumer?‘, has been published on guardian.co.uk to mark the launch of the Blogging Students section.

She writes:

“Students as consumers” is one of those horrid phrases that stimulates much indignant bleating: Education becoming a commodity, Universities becoming sausage factories, lecturers becoming Gove’s finger puppets.

But students have been consumers ever since fees were introduced, by definition. University offers us a product – libraries, access to expertise, careers advice – and, rightly or wrongly, we pay what the government deems is an appropriate price.

The question is, will increasing these fees make students more aware of their status as consumers, and demand more bang for their buck? And will the result of this demand be a creativity-sapping Dickensian nightmare, Mr M’Choakumchild at the helm churning out graduates like ‘so many pianoforte legs’?

See Lucy’s full entry here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

The second runner-up will be announced on Ones to Watch and published on guardian.co.uk on Friday, January 13. The winner will be announced and published on Tuesday, January 17.