Student grants
Sir: You find it objectionable (March 17) that "grown people" should take students seriously. I, of course, am less upset about it. Indeed, I am positively pleased to see that students are taken so seriously by the Editor of the Spectator, whom one assumes to be not just grown up but superannuated, that he devotes a column of his thickest black type to a hysterical attack on them.
Fewer doesn't mean better; it means richer. It means that sons and daughters of well-off people like the Editor of The Spectator can go into higher education, and the sons and daughters of the poor cannot. You would be able to assist your children to pay off a loan or meet higher fees. The majority could not afford to.
That is why we fight for higher grants; because, as every organisation concerned with education, from the Association of University Teachers to the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, has accepted, to keep grants at their present level will mean confining higher education to the well off. We think that is undesirable. You, presumably, do not. You either have not considered the implications of your proposals or you are being dishonest.
Digby Jacks The President's Office, The National Union of Students, 9 Endsleigh Street, London WC1
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