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Large areas of city blocked off as 4,000 officers police largely peaceful protest but Trafalgar Square camp quickly cleared

Thousands of students and demonstrators marched through London to protest against tuition fees and the “privatisation” of the higher education systemon Wednesday, flanked by a huge police presence determined to ensure the violent scenes that erupted last year were not repeated.

Fulfilling their promise of “total policing”, 4,000 officers took to the streets as Metropolitan police commanders blocked off large areas of the capital, bringing in dozens of mounted officers and blocking off roads with 10ft high barricades.

Protesters from the Occupy movement – which has been at St Paul’s Cathedral since mid-October – set up camp in Trafalgar Square with the aim of remaining until the mass strike of 30 November. They were quickly moved on by police, who also announced “additional conditions” for the march after it had begun.

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Students are spending £324,872.06 a year on telephone calls to the Student Loans Company Limited, This is Money can reveal.

The company, which arranges financial services for students, does not currently offer contact by email or a free phone number using instead an 0845 telephone number, from which it makes money.

Between April 2010 and March 2011 this generated it almost a third of a million pounds. An SLC spokesman said its contact telephone number was not premium rate: ‘Premium rate telephone numbers are defined as “09XX” numbers, and the telephone numbers provided by SLC all start with “0845”. Revenue that it receives from telephone calls is used to offset overall telephone charges, which reduces the cost to the public purse.

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Thousands of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to shun going to university due to a lack of understanding about the new fees system, it is claimed today.

A report by the Independent Task Force on student finance information concluded that many prospective students have misplaced fears over how tuition fees are paid – a situation it described as a “national scandal”. Researchers polled nearly 2,000 young people, 59 per cent of whom said they had little or no understanding of the system, which will see tuition fees rise to up to £9,000 a year from next September. The findings come on the day of a central London march by around 10,000 protesters angry about the new system.

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