Costs of top-up fees 2

I thought class warriors had died with new Labour. Clearly not, if Abigail McKnight's views are representative (Soapbox, THES , November 1).

To expect the parents of children who attend independent schools to be the only ones who must pay for university education ignores the variety of reasons why these children are there. These reasons relate to the individual child, the area they live in, parents' occupation and religious or ethnic background - but these would all be ignored.

Similarly, financial circumstances can so easily alter with death, divorce and redundancy, but that too would be ignored.

Ranald Michie
Chairman of history
University of Durham