EATING THE SEED CORN. A Times Higher Education column makes the case that higher education ought to be higher.

Who will teach students to think, to be disciplined, to be critical of themselves? Instead, they are being encouraged to select the university that says it can prepare them for jobs that may not exist when they graduate. If companies designing their courses go bust or are not recruiting, their hard-won training could have limited value.

It is a pity that our First Minister’s advisers have not convinced him of the dangers inherent in opting for a student-as-customer model. Customers usually go for the easiest, cheapest or most user-friendly option. Thus, we should expect a rise in demand for such fashionable courses as cosmetics, costume and the culinary arts, rather than rigorous ones such as history, physics or chemistry.

Apart from their obvious responsibilities, universities once cultivated reservoirs of talented people ready to meet the unpredictable challenges and problems that befall societies from time to time. Lord Mandelson’s [Britain's First Minister for Education] policies commit us to praying for a predictable future.

Britain's national anthem prays God to confound the Queen's enemies' politics and frustrate their knavish tricks. Is there no provision to similarly confound and frustrate the Queen's Ministers?