CONCERNS have been raised that the number of Bolton youngsters going into further education will drop if the Government introduces university top-up fees.

Students are lobbying Bolton Institute bosses not to increase fees if and when the Government introduces the controversial scheme.

Currently, university students pay a flat annual tuition fee of £1,125. The Government is proposing to allow universities to charge students up to £3,000 a year in a Parliamentary bill that will be debated later this month.

Although the Institute is not a university, the higher education shake-up will have ramifications for them.

The shake-up includes a huge expansion in two-year vocational degrees to meet the target of putting half the nation's under-30s through higher education.

Institutions will be able to charge higher or lower fees for different courses, creating a market in which students will choose their subject and university partly on the grounds of affordability.

Wayne Taylor, the National Union of Students' president at Bolton Institute, said feelings were running high among students about tuition fee proposals.

A group has been on a rally to London to demonstrate its feelings and has also spelt out its views to Institute chiefs in a bid to keep tuition fees as low as possible.

"The top-up fees would deter anyone anywhere from going into further education," said Wayne. "The whole subject creates a commercial system of education."

A concern was that once the fees were introduced, it would be relatively easy for universities to gradually start charging more than the £3,000 maximum limit.

Wayne thinks the fees would create a two-tier system, with poorer students only able to afford to go the lower charging universities, while the higher-charging universities would mainly be attended by students from richer backgrounds.

Some students say that without the added burden of top-up fees, they are already facing their working lives many thousands of pounds in debt.

Wayne said Institute bosses were in no doubt as to what the feelings of students were regarding top-up fees.

The University of Manchester, one of the nearest universities to Bolton and a popular destination for many, has already confirmed it will bring in the £3,000 a year maximum fee for undergraduate courses if the top-up scheme gets the go-ahead.

The tuition fees debate has split the town's three MPs. Bolton South East's Brian Iddon and Bolton North's David Crausby are against top-up fees as the proposals stand, while Ruth Kelly, MP for Bolton West, is in favour of them being introduced.

Dr Iddon said: "These proposals would mean many young people in my constituency going to cheaper universities and not getting the best education available to them."

He would only change his mind if all universities had a flat rate fee and were not allowed to vary it, if maintenance grants were increased, and if universities were banned from using the extra cash for bursaries.

Mr Crausby was also concerned about the variability aspect of the fees.

Ms Kelly, however, is in full support of the tuition fee plans, saying that higher education had been underfunded for many years and investment was needed to sustain the performance of universities.

The Government argues the new system would be fairer as students would not have to pay tuition fees up front, but could start repaying once their annual incomes passes £15,000.

Around a third of students would receive up to £1,000 a year in a limited return of maintenance grants for less well-off students.

Cllr Linda Thomas, Bolton's executive member for education, said there was no doubt that a number of students will be deterred from going to university because of the prospect of increased debt, even though the money only needs to be repaid after graduation.

But investment was needed in universities and she did not know where else the money was going to come from.

"It's very difficult. There is a group of MPs who are putting together some amendments to the proposals and I am very interested to hear what they are," she said.