TOP universities are setting targets that favour state pupils over independent pupils in return for being able to set higher fees, The Times has learnt.

Despite ministers’ assurances that top-up fees would not affect admissions, vice-chancellors have told the official regulator that they would take more state pupils as long as they could charge maximum fees.

The move was attacked last night by senior academics for making social engineering part of the admissions process rather than pure academic merit.

Plans sent to the Office for Fair Access (Offa) by Cambridge, Exeter, Leeds, King’s College London and York all pledge to change their student intake in return for being able to raise annual fees to £3,000.

Charles Clarke, in his letter of guidance to Offa as Education Secretary last year, said that it should have “nothing to do with admissions” but focus on efforts to increase applications from students in under-represented groups.

Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: “It is very foolish of the universities to tie themselves to these targets because they may have to widen admissions on social background rather than academic ability to meet them. They will then weaken themselves as universities.”

A spokesman for the Independent Schools Council, which represents more than 1,000 fee-paying schools, said: “Admissions targets or benchmarks or quotas based on the type of school an individual went to are a clear breach of the principle that students should be treated on their individual merits and not as representatives of a group. Any targets based on this . . . might lead in individual cases to unfair discrimination.”

Clarissa Farr, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said that efforts to widen the pool of qualified applicants to top universities should not extend to social engineering of admissions.

Offa said that it would scrutinise universities’ performance in their “access agreements” over the next five years. A spokesman said: “If it comes to light that the institutions are not making great progress against the targets, we will obviously want to talk to them.”

Failure to meet targets would not trigger penalties, but the amount of progress would be considered when universities sought to renew the agreements so that they could continue to charge higher fees.

Cambridge told Offa that it planned to raise state school admissions from 57.6 per cent to 60-63 per cent. It acknowledged that it already had four applicants for every place.

Oxford set no admissions target and limited itself to increasing the proportion of state school applicants from 57 per cent to 62 per cent. This will require it to attract another 270 state candidates per year.

King’s College London included an admissions target after declaring that it “fell short” of government performance indicators for state school entrants. It promised to revise selection procedures if necessary to raise the proportion from 70 per cent to 76 per cent.

Exeter said that state school entrants would rise from 66.9 per cent to 70 per cent by 2010. Income from tuition fees would be used to “increase the proportion of offers made to such students through the development of a fair and transparent admissions process which recognises potential”.

Leeds University had raised state school admissions by six percentage points to 77 per cent between 2001 and 2003. It pledged to increase it by a further six points by 2010. York said that it would increase state school entrants from 80 to 82 per cent by 2008. Bristol said it aimed to increase state school entrants from 60.3 per cent to 69 per cent by 2009.

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