Your opinion column about rising university costs being a hindrance to ‘poor’ students misses the point. The price set for law degrees and the LPC is determined not just by providers but also those buying courses. As courses all seem to be oversubscribed, it appears that the fees charged for them are still set at too low a level. Market equilibrium will exist where demand equates with supply. The fees set by universities for a law degree and the LPC may well be too low.

Students are being misled into thinking a career in law awaits them post-university and LPC. The supply of training contracts is much less than demanded. It is difficult to understand why, as a profession, we do not do the LPC within a training contract. This would eradicate the gross wastage of large numbers of students going through legal training with no prospect of ever becoming a practising solicitor.

That said, the moral argument that those who choose to go to university and into the profession should pay for it themselves is not without an element of persuasiveness.

Eugene MacLaughlin, Scully and Sowerbutts, Brentford, London