IF students can take anything from their protest over grant reform it is the salutary lesson that resorting to violence results in a loss of public sympathy.

Whipped up by the usual left-wing suspects in the media, they have become cannon-fodder for radicalism and anarchy. They must learn that to eliminate patience and tolerance from interaction with others is both disrespectful and dangerous.

Contrast the confrontational style of the students with the patient and rational debate maintained by Nick Clegg.

Put in an impossible position and an unenviable situation, he has displayed great leadership and emerged with dignity and credibility (except perhaps in the eyes of the students who do not want to see).

We must now return to a position in which higher education is seen as a tax burden on those of us being asked to subsidise the 50 per cent of youth who now attend our “universities” – the majority of which were once polytechnics and technical colleges producing skilled workers rather than TV and film-watching media studies gurus.

Let’s close all those second-rate universities and get back to the enlightened times when competition underpinned achievement and commitment was the cornerstone of employment.

Allan Charlesworth, Old Earswick, York.