Value for money?

Congratulations on balanced reporting of the Higher Education Policy Institute survey ("Part-time effort for full-time degrees", September 28) - in particular on avoiding the "lazy students" line adopted by some newspapers. The issue is not so much what students do as what universities provide and demand of them. But I would like to clarify one issue where you contrast an apparent discrepancy between the Hepi finding that per cent of international students thought their course was poor value with the i-graduate finding that the vast majority were satisfied with the quality of their experience. The National Student Survey showed that international students are very satisfied with the quality of provision. Our survey asked something different: if they thought they were paying too much for this. Most said no, but a worryingly large minority said yes.

Bahram Bekhradnia
Director, Hepi.