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The claim by Matt Grainger of the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association that the pay offer would cost 80 per cent of fees plus the increase in funding council grants is absurd (Letters, May 19).

With student and staff ratios about 15 or 20 to 1, each academic brings in ?45,000 to ?60,000 in fees. The top of the lecturer scale is about ?37,650, and 12.5 per cent of that is ?4,700, so even allowing for employers extra contributions, two students' fees in 2006-07 would cover the increase when it finally arrived in 2009.

The cost is nearer 8 per cent than 80 per cent. Is Ucea innumerate, stupid and deceitful, or does it know that vice-chancellors will follow recent precedent and give themselves ten times the rise they give lecturers?

Hugh Fletcher
Queen's University, Belfast