Times letters: Overseas fees and the true purpose of universities

Sir, Further to Joanna Williams’s article “Universities have forgotten their true purpose” (Mar 27), I would like to point out another key change. When I joined the University of Southampton nearly three decades ago, only one in ten of the staff of my department held full professorial rank: the figure in my school is now one in three. This has happened as the number of staff has grown significantly. One reason for that is the stagnating pay of academic staff: for universities to attract academics today they have to offer professorial roles to those they would never have considered for such titles in the past, simply to be able to pay them a salary attractive enough to persuade them to join and stay. The