Business secretary Lord Mandelson told university leaders he would not pre-empt a review this autumn into whether tuition fees, capped at £3,225 a year for students starting in October, should rise.

It hasn’t been confirmed how much fees will rise to. However, a report by Vice-Chancellors in March argued that £5,000 a year fees would not deter students, even though the Nation Union of Students says this would leave most graduates in more than £27,856 of debt by the end of their degree.

Mandelson told Vice-Chancellors that excellence in higher education was ‘not cheap’ and the country ‘had to face up to the challenge of paying for excellence’.

He said fees, which were introduced in England and Wales in 1998, had been a ‘radical and signal success in strengthening the resources available to universities without sacrificing accessibility to students’.

University and College Union General Secretary, Sally Hunt, said ‘In a time of recession the government should be thinking about how to make access to education cheaper, not giving a green light to universities who wish to charge higher fees’.

A review of tuition fees is to begin in the Autumn.