The government's proposal for "off-quota" university places (Richest students to pay for extra places at Britain's best universities, 9 May) would finally kill off the myth that the best and brightest get into the best universities regardless of wealth. Rather than increasing social mobility, as the government claims, the "needs-blind" process would simply offer an additional route for privileged young people while creating no extra spaces for people from other backgrounds. Universities would focus on acquiring more of these "off-quota" places rather than additional, government-sponsored places, especially in arts subjects where they receive no government funding.
Tim Stacey
• So having already implemented swingeing cuts to initiatives aimed at widening access to university for young people from poorer families, the government is now testing the waters with yet another socially divisive proposal. The suggestion that teenagers from the wealthiest families would be able to pay for places at the most competitive universities, at a time when changes to the education maintenance allowance and student loans are hitting those who are academically able but poor, is ill thought out. Following the debate about preferential access to coveted internships for the wealthy, it must be reasonable to conclude that the phrase social inclusion is now simply empty rhetoric. Social engineering, more likely.
Norma Hornby
Warrington, Lancashire
• David Willetts's proposal to provide funding for extra university places by selling some of them to rich parents has great scope for improvement. Why not simply withdraw the offer of loans for all students who have opted out of state secondary education and have been educated privately? Their parents have demonstrated the ability to pay their fees – £9,000 per year is considerably less than the cost of private education. This measure raises money from people who can afford to pay, without the need for means-testing. The money saved could provide many extra university places and subsidise poorer students, thus truly promoting social mobility.
PE Anderson
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• If Tory ministers really want to create extra university places to improve social mobility, why shouldn't we encourage wealthy parents to contribute to this commendable goal? If the wealthy have the means and ministers have the motivation, the government could set up a system whereby the wealthy could sponsor universal extra places to the benefit of everybody. We could call this innovative system "taxation".
Mike Frost
Bristol
• Your article instantly recalled a children's story in a medieval setting in which a poor student, a servitor, could attend university as a servant to a rich one. If these proposals allocate half of all places to the richest, higher education could become totally self-funding!
Mark Lewinski
Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire
• In 1967, when higher education was free for all those with the requisite A-levels, I undertook a first-year philosophy course at Leeds University in propositional and formal logic. Though not vocational in orientation, it has proved tremendously useful in my life and career. Until a few moments ago, that is, when I read that the proposal to allow some UK students to pay fees over and above £9,000 would allow more poor students to attend university.
Mick Beeby
Bristol
• I have no problem with people paying over the odds to get on a degree course rather than winning a place. But it seems only fair that the fact should be made clear. How about BA (paid)?
Pete Foster
Tring, Hertfordshire
• If David Willetts really does have two brains they must both be very small.
Will McLewin
Stockport, Cheshire