The students who paid £1,200 each in tuition fees claim that they are not getting value for money as each class they attend will cost the equivalent of £20 an hour.

With students who started courses this year now paying fees of £3,000, universities are bracing themselves for similar complaints from students and parents, who want to see the extra fee income spent on increased contact time with lecturers and smaller class sizes.

Huge variations in the number of teaching hours of academics in different disciplines were revealed in a report last week by the Higher Education Policy Institute. Students in medicine and dentistry have the highest number of contact hours at 21.4 hours a week, but teaching time is as low as eight hours a week in subjects such as history and philosophical studies.

The University of Bristol claims its new history timetable has been designed to allow time for “independent learning” and says students should be doing independent research rather than sitting in class. But Steven Hayes, 20, from Birmingham, said: “When I saw the two hours on my timetable I was shocked. It really does make one wonder whether to commute for those two hours a week.”

Another student told the university’s newspaper Epigram: “I thought I was paying to be educated by leading academics, not for a library membership and a reading list.”

When the 100 students applied for the history degree course they were told there would be a minimum of six hours a week tuition in the final year. They found out that had been reduced by two-thirds when they were handed their timetables last month. In the first two years they received between seven and nine hours of class time but the third year was designated as being “research led”.

Teachers at the department claim the changes were made after “considerable consideration with students, staff and leading historians from other universities”.

Dr Brendan Smith, head of history, said: “The new syllabus has been introduced at a time when pressures on resources are incredible and we have to make decisions about which forms of teaching will be most stimulating and effective.”

Students say they chose the University of Bristol because it offered more structured teaching than Oxford or Cambridge.

£75m to revive science degrees

Universities are to receive an extra £75 million over the next three years in an attempt to prevent the closure of science departments (Alexandra Frean writes).

In the past five years, thirty-eight departments have closed in England. The latest casualty is the University of Reading, which blamed financial constraints for plans to close its physics department by 2010.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has pledged the money to support expensive science subjects. The money is in addition to a £160 million programme designed to boost the number of science students.

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