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If you set Frank Furedi's piece on universities failing the Trade Descriptions Act (Features, THES , August 16) alongside the leading article on "degrees retaining market value" ( THES , August 30), you get a double whammy. Furedi suggests that spin leads to disappointment, which leads to litigation. The leading article asks if you would sink ?15,000 into a degree as readily as into a new car if you thought about the depreciation rate. Of course, there's no way to test-drive a degree.

I recently found that photos in a course brochure came from a photo library showing business types, rather than students on the advertised course. This suggests we trade in dreams and compound it by offering dreams at a time of dream inflation.

When I buy a tool, I want to know what I can do with it. With some degrees, it's getting increasingly difficult to get a straight answer.

Stuart Hannabuss
Aberdeen Business School