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In your report ("UK graduates earn highest rate of return", THES , August 30), London School of Economics' Nick Barr says that "graduates earn an extra ?400,000 over a lifetime and therefore it is right that a contribution is made towards... higher education". Since the extra tax accruing from those earnings would be not less than 50 per cent - NIS, income tax of 40 per cent and VAT of 18 per cent on consumption spending from the extra earnings - Barr's "therefore" is less than compelling. Or does he expect us to believe that the LSE spends ?200,000 per graduate it produces? And could he explain what public services, other than HE, graduates have received vis ¨¤ vis non-graduates?

Tim Curtin
Visiting fellow
Australian National University