Real Time: Begging to graduate, online

The economic climate is tough, and student fees are high. Against this backdrop, more and more desperate students are going online to try and raise funds from strangers.

Following the Kickstarter model used to raise capital for business ideas, they are trying to persuade people that their cause is worth supporting.

Ackeem Ngwenya owes London's Royal College of Art over £20,000, and he can only graduate once the tuition fees are paid.

So in desperation he has started a campaign on a crowdfunding website.

His graduation design project is informed by his childhood growing up in a Malawian rural community, where he had to carry corn for miles each day on terrible roads.

Ackeem has developed a wheel that can be manually adapted to suit different terrains.

But will he reach his target, and develop the project which has become his obsession? He thinks the internet is his only hope.

Video Journalist: Dougal Shaw

Real Time is a series for the BBC News website in which ordinary people tell their own extraordinary stories.