The truth about Essex
Sir: I, and, no doubt, most of your readers, read sourly your two articles about university students (24 May).
Perhaps I am unique in this country in being both the father of a successful (and grateful) graduate and a student still myself. I mix at student level equally with other students during the day and then take up my stance as an irate taxpayer in the evening.
My convinced opinion is that most of the more intelligent students want only one thing —to get a good degree.
What has been happening at the new uni- versities must make every ratepayer (such as myself) pause and think. Are these new univer- sities really necessary? What use.will their pro- duct be to the community? Do we need a great number of discontented graduates (mostly in the social sciences) who can never hope to get the jobs they think the country owes them?
What is the calibre of these students? The best of our grammar and public schools want to go to Oxbridge, London or Redbrick. Those who cannot make the grade go to the Stucco universities. There is singularly little trouble from the established colleges, always excepting the deplorable LSE. Is this trouble really an in- feriority complex?
What we all want to know is, is it worth it? Does quantity mean anything and is not quality what this country desperately needs?
Who, then, are these second rate students whose gratitude to their parents, counties and country is nil? What use will they be to the nation? Should not they and their incredible tutors understand that the new universities must first justify themselves academically? Who now would employ a student from Essex University? How will their degrees match up to the stringent standard of, say, London? A university is a place of learning.
Geo. E. Assinder Windywalls, Little Hallingbury, Essex.
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