Hit by low pay and Hodge-podge

Laurie Taylor's column (THES, May 10) encouraged a thought about graduates and their financial responsibilities to their alma maters.

Given the pitiful state of academics' salaries compared with graduates', I propose that any graduate earning more than a senior lecturer within, say, five years of graduating, pay an extra tax, which would go to the university that made them so valuable.

This would draw attention to the salary crisis in universities; provide much-needed extra funding; and the resultant outcry would cause academic salaries to rise quickly.

Christine Barrow

Cambridge