Further to Gordon Canns’ comments on the attack by the coalition on the living standards of the poor (Have Your Say, August 26), the coalition is failing our young people as well.

Some 150,000 eminently qualified young people will be denied a place at university this year. Why? These people are the future of our country and their skills should be nurtured.

We are told that there are insufficient places. So why did we issue 362,015 visas to non-EU students? Why were there 104,000 non-EU undergraduates at British universities last year? Well they do pay fees of up to £16,000 a year at Bournemouth, for instance, which closed its doors to British students even before the A level results were published by announcing it would not take part in clearing this year.

I do not advocate halting this branch of education – after all, foreign students paid £1.88 billion in fees last year, as opposed to the government, which coughed up £1.76 billion for research etc. But it is a competitive world out there and to train 30,000 Chinese undergraduates does not seem very sensible. Any places allocated to overseas students should be over and above our own needs.

Howard Davies, Holme Road, Highcliffe