That cash would then be recycled from a national pot by central bureaucrats to universities. Universities UK, the umbrella group for higher education, is behind the DfES’s position on the grounds that a lot of universities, notably the new universities, have so few better-off students that they would be able to collect only a small sum from them to recycle to the less well-off. Thus a two-tier system of universities would become even more entrenched, with the new universities being funded at an even lower level than they are now.The Adonis camp counters that the whole point of the reforms is to ensure that Britain’s top universities can compete internationally. We need to create a marketplace in education, they argue, and to reward those institutions that are world players. Doling out the extra top-up fee money from a central pot would hardly be setting the universities free to decide their own destinies. Rather, it would just continue with the same old equality of misery.We are likely to see a patchwork quilt of differing policies when and if fees are deregulated, much more like the system in America.

Most of the old universities are likely to charge more, but it won’t be the huge sums mooted; most of the new universities won’t charge extra, though some might charge for certain courses. Most higher-education colleges will probably not charge either, though some, such as the Royal College of Music and the London Institute, which incorporates five colleges including Central St Martins and the London College of Fashion, might do so.If the Government were clever, and able to find the money, it would introduce a funding system on the Scottish model whereby students pay no upfront fees, say many vice-chancellors. Instead, students pay back the cost of their education once their earnings have reached a certain level after graduation That is loosely called a graduate tax. It puts the onus of payment on to the student rather than the parent, and does so at a point when the student is earning a reasonable sum. It therefore spikes the political objections to charging for higher education.The problem is that it is opposed by the Treasury on the grounds that it would take 20 years for a decent income stream to start coming in. Vice-chancellors such as Drummond Bone, of Liverpool University, believe, however, that the Treasury may be overdoing its pessimism, and that making higher education free at the point of access is so attractive that every effort should be made to do so.Another way the Government could sweeten top-up fees is to introduce a cap on them to prevent institutions overstepping the mark. It could also bring in a savings scheme with tax breaks for parents as happens in the United States.

Changes would need to be phased in and would not be introduced before the date of the next election, which would take place in 2006 at the latest. Smart parents with offspring hoping to go to university after that are advised to start saving now.l.hodges independent.co.uk. Tony Blair and Charles Clarke have a big problem on their hands. Top-up fees are deeply unpopular with traditional Labour supporters, who regard it as wicked to make people pay for their higher education. They are disliked too by the middle-class voters who used to vote for Mrs Thatcher and now elect a Labour prime minister. Thus, if fees over and above the flat-rate £1,100 fee are introduced as a way of pouring some much-needed cash into the university system, they need to be explained carefully and introduced cleverly That does not seem to be happening Some of that is Labour’s fault.

The endless delays over publication of the Government’s plans has produced a feverish atmosphere. Speculation is rife, and those for and against top-up fees are engaged in a battle of the airwaves and the newspaper columns. The latest example was Frank Dobson, who accused his former cabinet colleagues of introducing elitist policies that would make matters worse for disadvantaged young people. The news that Imperial College London is toying with a top-up fee of £10,500 has been thoroughly “unhelpful”, to use the jargon of civil servants. In fact the £10,500 is not Imperial’s proposed fee; it is the cost of teaching a student at Imperial It is not intended that parents would be charged that sum. As we report on page 8, many “old” universities want to charge top-up fees but have no intention of charging anywhere near the Imperial figure.