Letter: Barbarism against humanities courses

Sir: On Thursday, thousands of would-be humanities undergraduates will discover their university place to have vanished along with government funding ('Record A-level pass rate will hurt arts students', 17 August).

This government equates higher education merely with training for employment, and seeks to impose this system upon the population. And yet there is no evidence that it would have any economic benefit whatever: did not the economy function more effectively before political interference in education?

The Government has laid bare its values in the only way that registers with it - the financial - by penalising the civilised values universities are supposed to preserve and promote by reducing the funding of humanities students. Do we care so little that no one seeks even to challenge this immoral and destructive barbarism?

Yours faithfully,

MICHAEL ROSENTHAL

Banbury,

Oxfordshire

17 August