An irate mother contacted E&L last week to complain about a letter her daughter, a student at the DIT, had received from the college. The letter informed her that the balance of her £250 capitation fee remained unpaid; failure to pay by the end of February, it said, might result in the withdrawal of facilities. The daughter is in receipt of a Dublin Corporation maintenance grant and expected that her capitation fee would be paid by the authority. The anxious mother rang the DIT and was eventually told that such letters are sent out so that students will put pressure on the Corporation to pay up.

The DIT confirms these letters are sent out to students at this time of the year. "We ask students to contact their local authorities to push things along," says DIT's faculty administrator, Therese Grogan. Even though the letter carries a withdrawal of facility threat, "there's no way a facility would be taken from a student", she says. The trick works though: the authorities are starting to pay up.

Nonetheless, it seems unfair to scare students unnecessarily and force them to lobby their local authorities. Why can't the parties come to some better arrangement?