Short: University top-up fees a 'really bad idea'

Proposals to allow leading universities to charge students top-up fees are condemned today by Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, as "a really bad idea".

The proposal is one of several being considered by the Government as a means of ensuring that universities can raise the funds they need to ensure they can compete with the best institutions around the world, notably in the US.

But in a newspaper interview Ms Short, the International Development Secretary, makes clear her opposition to the idea. She warns that such a system would produce "real two-tier universities and the rich would pay extra fees and go to the classy, elitist universities, rather like the US. I don't want Britain to go there, and I'm sure we can find a more intelligent way through."

Her comments followed confirmation yesterday by the Higher Education minister, Margaret Hodge, that top-up fees were one source of additional financing being considered by the Government in the longer term. Another funding option was a graduate tax.

The Government was working hard to devise mechanisms to ensure that students from less well-off backgrounds were not deterred from going to university, Mrs Hodge stressed.

She told BBC1's On the Record programme that ministers were determined to find "a way of ensuring that merit actually succeeds and money doesn't inhibit".