Top-up fees stop poorer students going to university

State school pupils, working-class youngsters and people from deprived backgrounds are losing out to more privileged candidates in the battle for university places, according to official figures published today.

Ministers expressed disappointment at the figures, which showed the proportion of pupils from state schools going to university has dropped to its lowest level for three years.

Drop-out rates have also risen and more young people are predicted to leave university with no qualification and to fail to find work, the data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) show.

Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said: "We are disappointed that the percentages of young full-time students from disadvantaged backgrounds have not increased since last year."

The publication came as the latest university application figures showed a 3.5 per cent drop, suggesting that young people had been put off going into higher education this autumn by the introduction of top-up fees. This meant that 17,184 fewer students applied to university than at the same date last year.

Universities will be able to charge fees of up to £3,000 a year from September. The new fee regime has already provoked a rush of applications last year with 8.2 per cent more people applying to ensure they would escape the new charges.

The Hesa figures show that 86.7 per cent of university places are now taken by state school pupils, a drop of 0.1 percentage points on the previous year.

Just 28.2 per cent of young first-year degree students starting courses in 2004-05 came from working-class backgrounds, down from 28.6 per cent the previous year.