Vice-chancellors unite in calling for £3,000 cap on top-up fees to be raised

Universities are urging the Government to lift its proposed £3,000-a-year cap on charging top-up fees.

Former polytechnics and vice-chancellors representing the Russell Group of the older universities are united in saying the figure is not high enough.

Sir Richard Sykes, the vice-chancellor of Imperial College London, told MPs the upper limit should be £5,000 when top-up fees are introduced in 2006. "I don't think £3,000 is a sensible cap," he said. "It encourages everybody to charge £3,000. I think what we should have tried to do here is create a top level of £5,000 – institutions may then have charged anything from £1,000, £2,000, £3,000 or £5,000."

Sir Richard said a higher ceiling would be the best way of creating diversity among universities, one of the aims of the higher education White Paper. Officials at the Higher Education Funding Council for England estimate that between two thirds and three quarters of institutions will introduce fees of £3,000 a year if that remains the ceiling.

Sir Richard's comments coincided with a survey showing graduate debt had risen by 17 per cent in the past year to an average of £10,997 a head. The research, for Barclays, showed the rate of increase was down from 44 per cent in 2001. Next year's graduates were forecast to owe £12,500 each.

Sir Richard caused uproar among academics and opponents of top-up fees when Imperial College suggested it might charge some students full-cost fees of £15,000 a year. However, Sir Richard acknowledged yesterday that Britain was not ready for unlimited fees. But the ceiling could be removed at a later date.

Professor Rick Trainor, the vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich, a former polytechnic, agreed that the £3,000-a-year cap was "constraining". A number of vice-chancellors are known to be lobbying ministers for an increase in the fee ceiling.

Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the Association of University Teachers, said: "Many people will be shocked and appalled to learn that some universities are now lobbying to get the cap on top-up fees lifted.If fees were to be charged at £3,000 per year, students would very possibly end up with debts of £21,000. But think how much more that would be if the £3,000 cap were lifted. With every penny that is added to the projected amount of debt a student will have to shoulder, more and more potential students – particularly from less-affluent backgrounds – will be put off."