Universities looking for extra resources to help maintain their world class research and study quality should be actively encouraged to introduce programmes of maintaing links with alumni ,the best potential source of funds they have .

Not all do : in my experience Oxbridge and some colleges such as Birkbeck are very proactive and maintain regular contact lists for events and donations but others are less so .

Another real potential lifeline of is to establish the Government's policy of encouraging evening university courses open to all building on established reputations for excellence.