In woebegone Hargeisa, the dusty and crumbling capital of Somaliland, a young university student insisted on paying for our tea at a cafe, thanking us profusely for engaging with him in a discussion about religion, politics and America that was eye-opening for Levi and me.

WSJ: Taken Aback by the Kindness of Strangers

In 1995 a young engineering student from the University of Virginia, John Paul Huguley, rang Fallingwater's staff to explain that, according to his calculations, the building was unsound.

ECONOMIST: An aptly named masterpiece reopens

Still a student at Brigham Young University in 2002, Neff started a miniscule beanie business, buying the caps at 99 cent stores, embroidering them, and finding any possible way to get them on the heads of a few cool snowboarders.

FORBES: The Cool Factor Business Model

Swansea University student union president Luke Young said students were leaving college with "staggering" amounts of debt.

BBC: Graduates returning to education

By the late '60s, he was a University of Washington forestry student, a "young greenie" worried about clumsy ski-resort developers laying waste to nearby mountain passes.

WSJ: Paul Mathews of Ecosign, Scouting the World for Killer Ski Slopes | Creating

Young Democrats at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's student union stuck address labels to stacks of mail flyers, while, one floor up, College Republicans brainstormed on how to increase interest in the November 7 elections.

CNN: Campus Politics: From storming dorms to abject apathy

But she had her eye on a young medical student, James, whom she later married in the university chapel.

BBC: Prince seals a 'match made in St Andrews'

"There are still negative stereotypes about hawkers, for example that they are less well-educated, " says Hazel Tan, a Nanyang Technological University student who is behind Youth Hawkerprise, a campaign to encourage young people to join the hawker trade.

BBC: Can Singapore's hawker food heritage survive?

Since the introduction of tuition fees four years ago, the government has faced a long running protest from student unions who have claimed that the fees were stopping young people from applying to university.

BBC: Blair hints at change in student fees