The rush is on to find a university place

Government "Astonished" by Fuss Over University Places

The Education Minister, Baroness Blackstone, said she was astonished that so much fear was being stoked up by those who should know better. But the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) said they expected up to 80,000 last-minute applications by students trying to get in "under the wire".

Matt Peacock talks to students trying to find a university place

From 1998 students will be charged tuition fees - thereby ending fifty years of free higher education. The introduction of fees was one of the recommendations of the Dearing Report on the future of higher Education.

A-Level results are due out next week, and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has said that students who fulfilled the grade offers made by universities for the coming year would be guaranteed their places. But because each university is only allowed to take a fixed number of students, applicants who enter the clearing process -- in which students without university places are matched up to remaining vacancies -- might not be able to take up their first choices.

Douglas Trainer, President of the National Union of Students, said those students who had deferred their university places, only to find they would be hit by fees if they waited a year, would feel "cheated and defrauded".

Tony Higgins of UCAS and Douglas Trainer of the NUS interviewed on Today

UCAS Chief Executive, Tony Higgins, said that, for the first time, demand for university places was likely to exceed supply. He told BBC Radio's Today programme that there had been a "staggering" increase in the number of people applying directly into the clearing system this year.

The Education Minister, Baroness Blackstone, issued a statement in which she sought to calm fears over a possible rush for places.

Students can apply to a new system of loans

She rounded on the NUS and UCAS for raising unnecessary fears. "If students who have deferred for a year were to rush for this year, they risk having to seek entry at the last minute into courses and institutions they would not otherwise have chosen," she said.

Baroness Blackstone said "no one, including UCAS, could not have foreseen" that the introduction of tuition fees would take place.

Students will not have to pay the fees until they leave university and start earning. Students from the poorest families will avoid paying fees altogether.

Those that do have to pay will have access to a new system of loans.