Maturity matters

Your front page painted a depressing pictures of applications by mature students to higher education (THES, February 13). Lucy Cavendish is a Cambridge College for mature women and we are saddened by the effect that the changes in funding appear to be having on the ambitions of older learners nationally.

But I thought you might be interested to know that our applications were up this year by 28 per cent. The biggest single increase is in medical science, but even if you take out the vets as well as the medics, we still have a healthy increase of 17 per cent. We can only assume that if it was not for the changes to maintenance arrangements and fees, we would see even bigger growth.

Ruth Hawthorn. Admissions tutor. Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge