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It is sad that it takes two officially retired but active academics, Ian McNair and Jennifer Bone, to say in public what is known to all in academia - higher education is "selling its soul" ("Academia has sold out, 72% believe", October ).

There are many purchasers: the Government, whose sole interest is the immediate economic benefit; employers, who feather their nests rather than aid higher education; senior academic administrators, who put the research assessment exercise or "bums on seats" atop their agenda; the University and College Union, which fights for salaries but rarely for academic freedom and excellence; and academics, who are cowed into submission.

So academics unite: you have nothing to lose but your (at least in part) self-imposed chains! Boris Johnson has said: "I'm not convinced that you can measure the value of higher education. It is a good in itself, an end in itself."

I am convinced that you cannot.

Lewis Elton
Visiting professor Manchester University