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In his analysis of the Ivy League ("The fuss over graduate numbersI is about Oxford losing money on undergraduate teaching", THES, July 4), Alan Ryan notes that the annual budget of the University of Pennsylvania is twice that of Oxford University, although Penn's endowment is only slightly larger.

No wonder British universities are unable to compete with their US counterparts. That single statistic says all one needs to know about the wasteful administrative structure at Oxford.

If it hopes to rival Penn, Yale, Columbia and other US universities in terms of research productivity, surely it needs to make better use of its resources?

Simon Baatz
Washington, DC