AS MANY as one in four teenagers from single-parent families are deterred from thoughts of university by the prospect of getting into debt, a study has found. White working-class boys are worst affected.

More than 2,700 schoolchildren aged 11 to 16 from London to Wales and the West Midlands were questioned over two days by Mori pollsters about their desire to go to university.

The findings, which come ahead of the introduction of university top-up fees next year, highlight the challenge to the Government and universities in seeking to widen participation in higher education among the worst-off.

Tessa Stone, the director of the education charity the Sutton Trust, said that the findings were significant because while youngsters often aspired to getting a job they were not often aware of the concept of getting into debt.

She said that she expected the figure of those not applying to university because of debt to be even higher for 18 year olds, “because for younger children debt is not that meaningful, so the fact that they are worried about it is significant”.

She added: “But of course, this is the group (children of single-parent families) for whom debt and financial insecurity will be most real and who will see daily the impact of a constricted budget and lifestyle.”

Seven in ten pupils said that they were likely to go into higher education and, as in previous years, more girls than boys saw themselves studying for a degree. Young people living in cities were more likely to try for university than those in rural areas.

Between the ages of 11 and 16, the percentage that said they were unlikely to go to university grew from 9 to 19 per cent. Of those, 48 per cent said that they wanted “to start earning money as soon as possible” and 35 per cent felt that they could get a well-paid job without a degree. For children from single-parent families, earning a crust was key to turning their backs on higher education.

The overall proportion of young people who said that they were unlikely to go into higher education because they were worried about getting into debt remained relatively low at 17 per cent. That figure dropped to 15 per cent in a two-parent household but rose to 25 per cent for those in a single-parent household. At the same time, while 48 per cent of young people declared that they wanted to “start earning money as soon as possible”, that figure climbed to 59 per cent among children from one-parent families.

The figures showed that although degrees were likely to earn a graduate more money in the longer term, that message had failed to get across to the less well-off, Dr Stone said.

“This is the group of students that are making important choices at 16 that will affect their futures and have a catastrophically high dropout rate at that age,” she said.

The Sutton Trust survey also disclosed that 79 per cent of ethnic minorities compared with 69 per cent of white teenagers thought it “likely” that they would get a degree. One in four thought it “very likely”.

Dr Stone said: “This is partly because they have a much more traditional culture that expects hard work, discipline and respect of teachers, and partly because they have a need to get on. They are still very aspiring in a way that white people in deprived areas are not.”

The key to narrowing the gap, she said, was to involve parents in their children’s education at primary school because by the time they reached secondary school it was often too late.

In January the Higher Education Funding Council for England disclosed that despite a rapid expansion of university places the class divide remained “deep and persistent”.

Youngsters from the wealthiest 20 per cent of homes were six times more likely to go to university than those from the poorest 20 per cent.

Top-up fees, which are being brought in to help to fund universities, will increase the cost of study from about £3,000 to a maximum of £9,000 for a three-year course.

Once a graduate’s salary rises above £15,000, repayments will be 9 per cent of the excess.

A student on a three-year course starting next year, who takes out maximum student loans and owes fees of £9,000, will be £20,745 in debt at the end of the degree. However, any debt remaining after 25 years will be written off.

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