Tens of thousands of A-level students may be left without a college or sixth-form place this autumn because there is no state funding for them.

Frantic efforts were under way last night to plug a £60 million hole in funding for the education of students aged 16-19 in England.

Details of last-minute cuts to sixth-form funding were e-mailed to schools on Tuesday – the last day of the financial year – which meant that they had no opportunity to seek new money or to readjust annual budgets due to begin the following day.

The cuts, which could affect an estimated 35,000 students, contradict government plans to encourage more young people to remain in education until 18. Many schools and colleges say that they have insufficient cash to pay for their current students, let alone the significant increase in numbers predicted for 2009-10. Some have lost as much as £300,000 a year.

Shaun Fenton, co-chairman of the Grammar School Headteachers’ Association, said that jobs would be cut, leading to bigger classes and fewer courses. “It will not be popular media studies courses that will close,” he said. “It is more likely to be small science, maths, languages or computing courses that will face the axe.”

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that schools and colleges had responded magnificently to the Government’s policy to increase the number of 16-year-olds in education. “They have an even more critical part to play during the recession, when more young people are likely to stay in full-time education,” he said. He has written to Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, asking for more money.

Sixth-form and college funding is administered by the Learning and Skills Council, which was criticised this week for mishandling a rebuilding programme that left colleges millions of pounds out of pocket.

Ministers said that they were not aware that it had promised schools one sum of money on March 2 only to cut it on March 31.

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