True indicator is a job at the end

I was surprised the director of policy for the HEFCE should write that "it is clear that our universities have succeeded in maintaining standards" following a comparison with other countries. There was no account of the different method of student selection in France that leads to a high drop-out after the first year. Also, in my experience it is quite difficult to fail a final exam in the UK, especially at Cambridge.

Peter Campbell

Department of biochemistry and molecular biology, University College London