Call to restore student grants

The academic whose report on higher education led to the introduction of tuition fees has urged the Government to allow grants of £2,500 a year for students from the poorest homes.

Writing in The Independent's Education supplement today, Lord Dearing says: "We cannot afford ... a divided society in which the children born to well-heeled parents are destined for university, while for the others there is only a one in four chance of making it."

The Government is to unveil proposals for higher education in a White Paper next month. Ministers are understood to back extending means-tested education allowances – worth up to £30 a week and available to pupils aged 16 to 19 – to university students.