University vice-chancellors revolt over top-up fees bursary scheme

The Government faces a damaging revolt by vice-chancellors over a central part of its plan to help Britain's poorest students. Their misgivings threaten to undermine an intensive campaign by ministers to quell Labour opposition to university top-up fees.

Vice-chancellors will urge Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, to back down over plans to force them to use part of the income from the fees to pay bursaries to students from low-income backgrounds. They say it discriminates against thousands of students from the poorest homes. Their opposition will be an embarrassment to Tony Blair, whose main hope of getting his reforms through the Commons lies in convincing enough rebel Labour backbenchers that there is an adequate package to protect hard-up students from top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year.

Mr Clarke will hold the first of six seminars today, aimed at blunting the rebellion. Nearly 160 Labour MPs have signed a motion criticising the plans.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, insisted yesterday that the Government would win the vote next month and appeared to throw the Prime Minister a lifeline by revealing that he had told his close ally Nick Brown, one of the leading rebels, to support the Government on the issue. Pressed on whether he backed variable fees, the Chancellor said: "Tony Blair has said that the variable fee is part of the system and I can see how a variable fee can be complemented by a fair system of repayment."

Mr Blair, speaking from the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria, played down the scale of the rebellion but said the fees issue was as big as the creation of the welfare state after the Second World War. He said: "It is a huge argument to make and it is as big an argument as people made when they were founding the welfare state."

Ministers have argued that university-funded bursaries will be a significant source of support for low-income students. But the vice-chancellors say the universities which have done the most to attract working-class students will have the least amount of money to offer bursaries, whereas elite universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, would be able to afford to pay them thousands of pounds. One vice-chancellor said: "Most of our students are working class. I'd be lucky to be able to offer them a fiver from my fees income, whereas Oxford and Cambridge could afford to give the few they have thousands.''

Some universities, such as Wolverhampton, where 48 per cent of students last year came from low-income families and were exempt from the current £1,125 a year tuition fee, say they would have little income to spend on bursaries.

One solution being advocated in government circles is compelling universities to devote a third of their fees income to paying bursaries to their poorest students, but representatives of the "new" universities would prefer a national bursary scheme covering the difference between the £1,125-a-year tuition fee and the maximum £3,000-a-year top-up fee.

Professor Mike Thorne, vice-chancellor of the University of East London, said: "Feelings are running very, very high on this. There must be a national bursary scheme because it would be fair to all students and it would be much less costly to implement."

The class divide

HIGHEST NUMBER OF WORKING-CLASS ENTRANTS (EXEMPT FROM FEES)

¿ University of Wolverhampton 48 per cent;

¿ Bolton Institute of Higher Education 45 per cent

¿ University of East London 44 per cent;

¿ Swansea Institute of Higher Education, University of Paisley, Newman College of Higher Education, Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln 40 per cent;

¿ University of Ulster, Northeast Wales Institute in Wrexham, University of North London, University of Luton, Liverpool Hope University College, University of Greenwich, Edge Hill College of Higher Education 39 per cent.

LOWEST NUMBER OF WORKING-CLASS ENTRANTS

¿ University of London 2 per cent;

¿ Glasgow School of Art 7 per cent;

¿ University of Cambridge 9 per cent;

¿ University of Oxford 10 per cent;

¿ University of Edinburgh 13 per cent;

¿ University of Durham, University of Nottingham, St George's Medical School, London 14 per cent;

¿ Dartington College of Arts, University of Exeter, Imperial College London, University College London, University of Warwick, University of St Andrews 15 per cent.