Sir – The current debate on taxing graduates (Report, September 9) is reaching a dangerous level. It is hard to see why those that have followed a university course of given cost should repay different sums for the benefit.

All those that took the same course volunteered for the same risks and opportunities. They chose to study, how hard to study and what to do with the qualification they were awarded.

If high earners pay a premium, it appears that low earners would receive an equivalent discount. The proposal seems not only unfair but entirely unnecessary as many of these earnings inequalities are already addressed in the UK’s system of income taxes. Higher income earners are taxed at 40 per cent with those earning over £150,000 paying a top rate of 50 per cent.

Lower income earners pay tax at nearly half these rates. The net result of these proposals will be that talented students who go on to make substantial earnings in their employment will be penalised twice: firstly by repaying higher student loans and secondly by paying higher taxes. This would seem to be iniquitous in all respects.

The proposals as they stand will prove a major disincentive for some talented students to consider university education at all. Others might vote with their feet by attending top-tier universities overseas and not returning to our shores once they graduate. The country would be much the poorer for their absence.

The UK needs to have a first-class education system capable of producing first-class graduates who are able to compete internationally with their peers overseas.

The current proposals will have unintended adverse consequences that far outweigh any fiscal benefit from charging higher student loans to those students who are most able to achieve higher incomes.

Nigel Bridle, Middleton Stoney