TOP universities are rejecting more students from state schools in favour of rivals from the fee-paying sector, new figures showed yesterday.

Sixteen of the nineteen universities in the Russell Group took a smaller proportion of entrants from state schools last year despite government pressure on them to admit more.

The figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency threw into reverse the trend towards greater admission of state school candidates by leading universities since Labour took office.

They emerged as ministers prepare a campaign to persuade teenagers not to be deterred from applying to university next year by the introduction of £3,000-a-year tuition fees.

The “performance indicators” from the agency showed that Oxford admitted 53.8 per cent of students from state schools in 2003-04, against 55.4 the year before. Admissions at Cambridge also fell from 57.6 per cent to 56.9 per cent.

The proportion of state students admitted by Newcastle and Nottingham fell by more than 5 percentage points to 68.6 per cent and 67.4 per cent respectively. At Imperial College, London, and King’s College London the drop was about 3 percentage points to 59.6 and 67.3 per cent.

Only Birmingham, Bristol and Sheffield in the Russell Group increased their share of state students. However, there were declines at other leading universities, including Durham, Bath and York.

The drop in admissions came as new figures from the Higher Education Funding Council showed that almost a quarter of first year students fail to graduate from the university or college where they enrolled. The figure, which represents nearly 70,000 students, could be costing as much as £500m a year.

Not included in the total are those students who leave before December 1 in their first term after the frantic rush through clearing.

The overall proportion of state candidates accepted at British universities fell for the first time since 2000, the year Gordon Brown attacked the influence of the “old school tie” at Oxford over its rejection of the Tyneside comprehensive student Laura Spence.

A total of 86.8 per cent of entrants in 2003-04 came from state schools, compared with 87.2 per cent in 2002-03. The Independent Schools Council welcomed the increased success of fee-paying students.

Jonathan Shephard, its general secretary, said: “All the evidence is that universities are putting their academic reputations first and recruiting the best candidates, regardless of means and regardless of social background.”

Officials at the Higher Education Funding Council for England sought to dismiss the findings as a “blip”, but acknowledged that there were deep-rooted problems in persuading more state school students to aspire to university.

John Rushforth, the funding council’s director of widening participation, said: “We know that this is a problem that comes through in the schools. It comes through in some cases, research suggests, at a very early age in terms of aspiration, seven and eight-year-olds.

“Any changes are going to take a long time. We are clear this is something we have to stick at and all of us — institutions, the funding council, government and other people — have to keep working hard.”

Sir Peter Lampl, a government adviser on widening participation and chairman of the Sutton Trust, an educational charity, called the figures very disturbing. “It looks like a lot of the good work that has been done over the past few years is being reversed. This is a crucial issue because our research shows there are still 3,000 students from state schools who should be going to top universities and are not,” he said.

Sir Peter said controversy over new “benchmark” targets for state school admissions had “taken the spotlight off this issue”. Previous benchmarks were based on A-level results, but the funding council now uses the points system adopted by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas).

The benchmarks for state school entrants were previously based on A-level points, where an A grade was 120 points, a B 100 and so on down to 40 for an E. Students with three A grades were deemed to have 360 points.

Under the new benchmarks, a wide range of qualifications attract points, creating a far bigger pool of students with 360. Hefce regards them all as theoretically eligible for entry to Oxbridge and other top universities, even though in practice they would not be considered.

Admissions tutors say that the targets are unattainable because they require candidates to have specific A-level grades rather than Ucas points totals.

Oxford said that applications from state students had risen by nearly 40 per cent in the past five years. A spokesman said the university would continue to encourage more applicants, but added: “We will not be exercising any positive discrimination at selection stage.”

The Independent Schools Council described the benchmarks as absurd. Mr Shephard said: “Compiling the benchmarks in this way has led to massive increases in the number of state sector pupils assumed to be qualified for entrance to a top university. The reality is somewhat different.”

Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, said individual universities were responsible for admissions. He added: “Do we want to see more young people from state schools going to higher education? Yes we do.

“Widening participation in higher education is a shared responsibility, and the challenge is for universities and colleges to reach out to communities, attract new students and offer new opportunities for everyone with the ability to participate.”

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