Education: Oxbridge fees: now the battle is just beginning

Oxford and Cambridge are fighting to keep the extra public money - pounds 2,000 more per student - they receive for the college system. They have powerful allies, including, it is rumoured, the Prime Minister, an Oxford alumnus.

But education ministers appear determined to ensure that the two ancient universities make greater efforts to recruit more pupils from state schools in return for any extra cash.

David Blunkett eyeballed a group of men from Oxbridge last week - the two vice-chancellors and representatives from colleges. It was a friendly and constructive meeting, according to the university men, and they came away chuffed. They had been granted an audience with the Secretary of State. He had listened politely even if he had not told them anything. And that was certainly more than they had received until then.

That innocuous meeting, however, was just the beginning of what could be tough negotiations between mandarins from the Department for Education and Employment and officials from the two universities over the extra pounds 35m given to Oxbridge. In the coming weeks detailed discussions are to take place and, if last week's meeting is any guide, the issue of access will be high on the agenda. An informal deal to attract more state school students to Oxbridge is anticipated in return for the universities keeping some, if not all, of their extra funding in some guise or another.

"We're very keen on broadening access but this must be done by getting more applications from the state sector," says Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, chancellor of Oxford University, who has the ear of Tony Blair and is championing Oxbridge's cause. "We will try harder to broaden the avenue of access by encouraging more people to apply. Substantial efforts are being put into that now. What has to be remembered is that over a 30-year period all the big grammar schools have moved from the state to the independent sector."

Many education experts believe it is difficult to justify spending proportionately more on educating an elite at Oxbridge, particularly when that elite is drawn from such a narrow social base.

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, appeared to lend support to that viewpoint in his speech at the Labour Party conference this year when he referred to the percentage of private school educated students at Oxbridge.

The ratio of state to independently educated pupils at Oxbridge - roughly 50/50 - has remained stubbornly impervious to change since the early 1970s. That ratio needs to be seen against the numbers attending private schools - only 7 per cent of the population. Oxbridge argues, however, that it is fairer to compare the make-up of the student body with the number of pupils gaining three As at A-level, who are the sort of people one would expect to see at the two universities. Nationally, 35 per cent of those achieving three grade As at A-level are from independent schools against 60 per cent from state schools and further education (with the other 5 per cent not known). So, a ratio that would reflect the achievements of the population at large would be more like 37.5/62.5.

So far the universities are a long way short of those proportions. Oxford performs worse than Cambridge and appears to lack its colleague's enthusiasm for seeking out state-school applicants - though its spokesmen deny the charge. It takes more pupils from independent schools than from state schools. And this year the proportion from state schools fell: 41.6 per cent of places went to state school applicants, compared with 43.6 per cent last year and 44.7 per cent in 1991. "This year's drop may not be statistically significant but it couldn't have come at a worse time for Oxford," says Sir Christoper Ball, former warden of Keble College, Oxford, who believes the college fee cannot be justified.

Cambridge takes a higher percentage of state pupils than Oxford and, after allowing for other students such as those from overseas, it actually takes more state than private pupils. The figure this year is 47 per cent.

At last week's meeting the two universities were at pains to tell Mr Blunkett how much they were doing to recruit pupils from state schools. Indeed, there has been a flurry of activity at Oxbridge on this front since the news that the Department for Education and Employment was reviewing the college fee. Both universities have announced energetic new plans to address the access problem.

Cambridge has set up what it calls a "high-powered" task force led by Sir David Harrison, master of Selwyn College and former vice-chancellor of Keele and Exeter universities. It is developing its bursary scheme for undergraduates with limited means; it is launching a PR campaign to encourage more clever students in state schools to consider Cambridge; and it is boosting its student-run Target Schools Scheme which encourages applications from state schools.

At Oxford, a special access working party chaired by the new vice-chancellor, Colin Lucas, has been established. Students involved in the Target Schools Scheme will be hopping on a battle bus to tour regions, such as Ireland and the North, which send relatively few state school pupils to Oxford; there will be a bigger summer school for pupils from state schools to spend a week learning about Oxford life. And so on.

Unkind observers wonder why more action could not have been taken before. In mitigation, the universities talk of intimidation about or prejudice against Oxbridge in the state sector. Some comprehensive school teachers put bright pupils off applying, they claim. They tell them Oxbridge is snooty and elitist and not for them. Or they simply do not know how to prepare clever pupils for interview.

Last week, for example, Alan Ryan, warden of New College, Oxford, interviewed a girl from a comprehensive school who had applied off her own bat. She wanted to read French and philosophy after reading the pop philosophy book Sophie's World. The school could not teach her anything about philosophy at all and could not find time to tell her anything about how to conduct herself in interview, he says. "You couldn't tell how good she was because nobody had said to her, `You will get these kinds of questions and these are the kind of things that would count as an answer.'

"I have no doubt I could have taught her quite a lot of philosophy over a period of three years. That's what drives one mad, really."

Oxbridge also ask why they are made the whipping boys when institutions such as Bristol, the LSE and University College London also recruit substantial numbers of privately educated pupils but keep quiet about it. The two ancient universities have been very open about their figures, a spokesman for Cambridge says. Why couldn't other universities publish their data?

Ryan believes the Government could help Oxbridge to recruit more students from the state sector by telling comprehensive schools to encourage pupils to aim high. In fact, he thinks a deal on college fees has been clear for a long time. Oxbridge would lose 25 per cent of its extra funding over five years as efficiency gains, he suggests, on the grounds that those two universities have not suffered as much as others in recent years. In return the universities would do their damnedest to push up the number from state schools.

The current tussle dates back to the summer, when Sir Ron Dearing published his report on higher education. In that he questioned whether the extra funding for Oxford and Cambridge represented value for money. Ministers decided to have a look. They asked the Higher Education Funding Council to advise. It did so last month in the form of options: funding could stay as it was, it said; or the college fee could be abolished; or the extra money could be subsumed into the general grant for the universities and phased out over a period of years as a new formula to reward high-quality teaching was introduced. The assumption is that Oxford and Cambridge would do well on teaching quality because of the tutorial system.

The third option is thought to be the front-runner because it would mean the two universities being funded by the same rules as other universities. But academics at Oxbridge dislike the idea of losing the college fee. That is because it would mean colleges losing power to central departments at the two universities. Most of the teaching of arts and humanities - particularly at Oxford - is done through the colleges, which hire their own staff. Without the fee, colleges would have less say when it comes to recruitment - and arts subjects might suffer. The more the financing goes through the university the more arts people would find themselves competing with scientists for staff and equipment. And there could be almighty battles between the arts and sciences.

The universities are concerned that neither ministers nor officials at the DFEE have any understanding of how their institutions work or the impact of any changes. John Flemming, warden of Wadham College, Oxford, complains that the issue has been kicked around the pages of broadsheet newspapers for six months but until now no one has talked to the colleges. "We have not been consulted yet it's money which goes to colleges which is at stake," he says. "It's a funny way to do business."

The fact is no one knows for sure what the Government is going to do. It depends on the negotiations to come. The fact that the Prime Minister is involved and is thought likely to take the final decision strengthens Oxbridge's hand. But Mr Blair has yet to meet Mr Brown to discuss the matter. What everyone is expecting is a fudge.

One Labour figure suspected a battle was taking place between No 10 and the education ministers. Mr Blair, having been lobbied by Lord Jenkins, and his former teacher Eric Anderson, now rector of Lincoln College, is thought to believe pounds 35m is not worth arguing about. "If he hadn't intervened, Oxbridge would have lost everything," said the Labour source. "The fudge will be a result of his intervention." A decision now looks unlikely before Christmas. The White Paper on lifelong learning is expected on 27 January 1998. And a decision on Oxbridge is likely before that - say, mid-January.