Suggestions that students could be paying over �10,000 annually for university tuition are misleading, the vice-chancellor of Oxford University says.

Sir Colin Lucas said figures being put about in the media were not a realistic estimate of how much universities would charge if the government gave them the authority to raise tuition fees above the current cap of �1,100 per annum.

It's really not helpful to talk about the very large sorts of sums that have been banded around

Sir Colin Lucas

The figures were seized upon when a confidential paper by Imperial College, London, set out how it would introduce "top-up" tuition fees - as the extra charges are known - for students of up to �10,500 a year.

Imperial said it would do so only in collaboration with other prestigious universities - but a senior figure there said a number of institutions "were sworn to work together on the initiative".

But Sir Colin said parents and students should not assume that universities would charge the full market rate for tuition if top-up fees were allowed.

"It's really not helpful to talk about the very large sorts of sums that have been banded around the press at the moment," said Sir Colin.

"I don't think that that's the sort of sum at all really."

Up to �3,850

Sir Colin said Oxford University currently faced a deficit of between �2,500 and �2,750 per student per annum.

Top-up fees will create a two-tier, elitist system

Mandy Telford, NUS

"That means that our shortfall on publicly-funded taught students last year on aggregate was �23m," he said.

"Now I've got to find �23m from somewhere, so that's the order of it."

So, if Oxford was given the go-ahead - and opted - to introduce top-up fees to make up that deficit, it is fair to assume that the cost to students might be between �3,600 and �3,850 (the deficit plus the current tuition fee charge of �1,100).

But a university spokesperson stressed that, at this stage, Oxford had not carried out "any detailed financial planning on the possible costs to students if de-regulated fees were to be introduced".

Funding crisis

Top-up fees have been seen, by some of the leading universities as a solution to under funding in the sector.

The Russell Group - made up of 19 leading institutions, including Oxford and Imperial - fears under funding will mean universities are no longer able to compete on a global scale.

But the idea is highly controversial and with many critics, including the National Union of Students.

Sir Colin Lucas: "It's not helpful to talk about the very large sorts of sums"

NUS president Mandy Telford said: "In the current situation, students are facing record levels of debt."

"This will be made much worse if the government introduces top-up fees or allows universities to go private.

"Top-up fees will create a two-tier, elitist system with students going to university based on their bank balances not their brains," she said.

Universities tend to be reluctant to discuss the matter in public.

On Friday the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, Sir Alec Broers, spoke out to contradict rumours that the university was considering top-up fees.

Review postponed

Meanwhile universities are still waiting to see what the future holds for higher education funding, as the government again delays its review of the sector.

The new Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, is said to want time to "engage fully in this key policy issue".

A spokesman for Bristol University said: "We share the disappointment, that must be felt right across the HE sector, that the strategic way forward remains unclear."

Tim O'Shea, the principal of the University of Edinburgh, said universities were "extremely underfunded" and that if Edinburgh was to maintain its world class standards "new opportunities for funding" had to be explored.

But he went on:"We are fully committed to widening the participation of students from all backgrounds and have a concern of the effect that top up fees would have on this.

"We support the current tuition fee regime in Scotland and would look to the Scottish Executive to ensure that higher education is properly funded here."