Save University students' stipends

With reference to Jonathan Fenech's Stop The Pampering Of University Students (April 16), I would like to, in my most humble, sincere, and polite form, ask of Mr Fenech that if he is not the father of a second year University student who goes to and from the University by bus everyday (two trips each way), costing €9.40c each week (half the weekly stipend), with a younger son starting at Junior College next September with exactly the same costings, to consider taking part in the argument (which is his right) but to please stop short of judging or reaching conclusions because I promise him that he does not even know what he's talking about.

Of course I wish I were rich, so my children could go to the University in a "state-of-the-art" car and also have many of the luxuries he says students enjoy. And, truly, some lucky students do have them.

Good luck to them. But the fact is that many of the students (in most families, more than one strident) have to turn to their parents, (in my case, prudently, thank God) when the weekend is on for some financial assistance as after the bus trips and the daily soft drink, what's left of the stipends hardly pays for the cinema ticket!

And, no, certain courses, like my daughter's do not allow enough study-free time for a part-time job. I can vouch for that. And, yes, in summer she works/assists/studies/practises at hospital every day (part of the course) which is compulsory, and is considered as "paying something back" to the taxpayer, with which I wholeheartedly agree. But all this does not leave time for part-time work.

One may have noticed that I did not go into details of (many) other daily, mundane expenses any person, even students, come up against, ranging from a simple top-up card for the lowest-priced mobile on the market to basic, necessary (no exotic brand names) clothing etc. I can safely say that over a six-year period (two years College plus University) for two children, without the small help of the stipends the burden on me and my wife (God knows how many others, if not all) may have been too much.

So I kindly ask Mr Fenech and other quick-fire conclusion drawers to be well informed (preferably through personal experience) before commenting.