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Many thanks to Robin Baker for articulating the need for "a united voice" in the academy ("Sector must address 'fundamental' failure to challenge funding cuts", 25 November). Students and staff in higher education are under unprecedented pressure to take responsibility for solving problems that are quite outside both their remit and their power. The danger for university managers is that, rather than opposing an unworkable and incoherent set of government requirements, they will simply pass on the burden of anxiety to everyone else, most of all the young people of this country.

It is despicable to expect students, prospective students and university staff to solve the problems created by the financial sector. Indeed, it is politically and intellectually craven.

Julia Swindells, Cambridge.