Student grants and loans for living costs will be frozen this year although tuition fees will rise, ministers announced yesterday.

The announcement came as figures showed that teenagers from wealthy families were twice as likely to go to university as those from the poorest. Universities, student leaders and political opponents said that the decision would make students even poorer.

Tuition fees will rise by just over 2 per cent to a maximum £3,290 a year, said the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, led by Lord Mandelson, as will the loans that students take out to pay them. Maintenance loans and grants will be frozen at last year’s rates, though, because of low inflation. That could result in students taking out private loans, while racking up tuition fee debt, with fewer jobs available once they graduate.

The maximum grant remains at £2,906. The family income threshold for a partial grant remains at £50,020.

Wes Streeting, the president of the National Union of Students, said: “It appears the inflation rate is being applied where it suits universities, but not where it will improve student support.”

David Willetts, the Shadow Universities Secretary, said: “In his first week as Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there would be an extra increase in financial support for students, but he has run out of money and has been cutting back support for students ever since. It’s poorer students in particular who will be hit by these reductions. This is why we need to get on with the long-promised student finance review to do more to help students from poorer backgrounds.”

Government statistics showed that the proportion of school-leavers from poorer families going into higher education had risen by only 3 per cent in five years, despite a government campaign. In 2007-08 21 per cent of the poorest 18 to 20-year-olds were at university, compared with 41 per cent of the richest.

Diana Warwick, the chief executive of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, called the freeze on maintenance support unfortunate.

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