Dr Alf and the Wall Street Journal worry about the student loan problem.

They do so with good reason because in the UK less than half the student loans are being paid, and this last year, the taxpayer was saddled with the costs of collection and the writing-off of the bulk of these loans.

Universities make up the shortfall by attracting high paying foreign students, primarily from China and the Far-East, and by building campuses overseas.

Tony Blair and his friends presided over a massive con-trick, which was to expand university education to many people who would otherwise be residing on the dole and who could then be removed from the unemployment figures. As the economy normally does not create that many jobs, we now have the phenomenon of students graduating with often useless degrees who cannot get work.

We also have the situation whereby many of the old jobs are being automated out of existence so that even in a pre election boom 1 job exists for every 47 applicants.

University entrance should be based on a demanding set of criteria to identify intellectual brilliance and the clever people needed to run things and create competitive industries, which produce foreign exchange and create high paying jobs.

Instead it is used as a device to massage unemployment data and warehouse a growing number of blockheads who have no business being in a seat of higher learning.

Student Loans should be abolished for UK students but as Dr Alf says their numbers need to be reduced.

The rest need vocational training, language training, and a long stint of national military service, before starting work and those with entrepreneurial flair need business boot camps, mentoring and grooming.

Surely, anything else is just playing with sand-castles on the beach?

John Gelmini