Fair point about grants becoming loans, though how the government are going to justify handing out that much debt to young people could be interesting.
As for masters internationally, US tends to only do them if you drop out of their PhD programmes, when the whole point in looking for a masters is to strengthen a PhD application, and Europe tends to be taught masters, which I'd rather avoid since exams are a huge weak point for me!
May have to get a job for a few years, shock horror!