We want the government to either over-rule this budget or come clean about whether it intends to allow such fees to be introduced

Nick Parrott, NUS

Nick Parrott, the area convenor for the National Union of Students in the West Midlands, accused the university of acting irresponsibly.

"It's illegal to impose top-up fees so Aston is acting irresponsibly in suggesting this."

He said the NUS opposed top-up fees because they would force students to choose their universities by cost.

"The fees would hit the poorest students the most," he said.

Any top-up fees would be in addition to the tuition fees already in place, which are pegged at �1,050 a year for better-off students.

Aston's proposals were submitted in the university's budget to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).

Options

University chiefs insist they do not want to introduce the fees, but say they are running out of other options to raise funds.

Aston's secretary-registrar, David Packham, said the plans were included in the budget partly as a "wake-up call" to the government.

He said: "We don't want to bring in top-up fees, we know the students are against them too, but we are running out of funding options.

We are boosting our funds in a variety of ways, through links with industry and improving our conferencing facilities but it isn't enough

David Packham, Aston University

"We have expanded considerably in the past few years, widened participation and maintained standards.

"Our student numbers have doubled over the past ten years but we've had a 40% reduction in units of resources."

The funding council says at least one other university has mentioned the possibility of using top-up fees in its commentary on its five-year plan, though not in its actual budget as Aston has done.

Yesterday the Higher Education Minister, Tessa Blackstone, told the Commons' education select committee that the government was opposed to such fees.

"�1,000 extra fee"

Aston's plans involve raising an extra �1.73m by 2004-5 by charging about half of its undergraduates an additional �1,000 fee.

Tension over the possibility of top-up fees comes as Aston canvasses opinion on proposals for a merger with Birmingham University.

Staff and students have until 6 February to say what they think.