36000 face losing place at university because of £9000 tuition fees - Telegraph.co.uk

Next year's higher education settlement was based on an assumption that universities would charge £7,500 on average. But it is feared that will now be closer to £8,500.

Ministers have already threatened to withdraw some places at the most expensive universities and warned of further higher education cuts to combat "collective overpricing".

Speaking in London yesterday, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, claimed that student numbers could be cut by up to 36,000 and the entire system may end up losing money. He said: "This unfair and shambolic tuition fees policy is now unravelling.

"It will cost taxpayers more, it will cost students more and it may cost thousands of young people their university places."

Using figures from the House of Commons Library, it was claimed that if average fees were £8,500, the funding shortfall would reach £450?million in 2014-15.

Ministers would then have to cut places or find savings elsewhere, Labour claimed. Last year, some 377,500 British and European students were admitted to English universities. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: "This policy has become a runaway horse and, without strong intervention soon, could have disastrous effects."

But the Coalition branded the claims "scaremongering". Ministers pointed out that most further education colleges, which often run degree courses accredited by universities, intended to charge less than £6,000 and that poorer students even at top universities would not pay the maximum. Warwick University said almost one in five would be eligible for discounts worth up to £4,500.

David Willetts, the universities minister, said: "The reality is that lots of students will not face fees anything close to £9,000 a year – including at the most prestigious universities. And of course, students don't pay upfront and their monthly repayments as graduates are going to be lower than they are now."

So far, all of the elite Russell Group of universities that have made announcements want to charge £9,000.

A number of former polytechnics also want to levy the maximum, including Oxford Brookes, Lincoln, the University of Central Lancashire and East London.

Sheffield Hallam – Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's local university – wants to charge £8,500, blaming the rises on a government funding gap.