Maureen Robinson is right (Letters, October 23). It is true that students are not studying hard on a Friday and Saturday night.

They’re most likely sitting in their rooms drinking innumerable cups of tea and feeling very homesick, especially if they’re freshers and are away from their families for the first time. I know, because I’ve been there myself.

University is a marvellous half-way house on one’s journey towards independence.

It is at university that you begin to forge a life of your own, to make lifelong friendships and form lifelong relationships.

University is not just an academic education, but a social education: a young person gives much thought to not just what but where they want to study, and the opportunity to live in a hitherto unknown part of the country does much to broaden the mind.

I benefited much from the experience of being a student, and would never begrudge that experience to anyone else.

Students contribute much to the community in which they live, academically, socially, culturally, academically.

Let us not use the behaviour of a very small minority to confirm our cliché-ridden perceptions.

Are we going to start singling out students, along with weekend visitors from the North-East, people who stay in guest houses, immigrants, etc, etc, as scapegoats to take the blame for our current socio-economic ills?

The causes of these surely lie elsewhere.

Dr Julie Speedie,

Newborough Street, York