Almost 43% of undergraduates are part-time students

Universities had complained that the student finance plans for next year would disadvantage part-time students.

More than two in five students are part-timers, but the scrapping of up-front fees is only to be introduced for full-time students.

Means-tested fee support available will rise by up to 27%.

Announcing the increases at a conference in London, the Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said that the fast-growing part-time sector was "good for student choice, good for the economic health of our nation".

Challenging finances

Under the new arrangements for 2006, part-time students who are studying at the rate of 75% of a full-time course can receive up to �1,125 towards fees (up from a previous maximum of �885).

For students studying at the rate of 50% of a full-time course, the maximum will rise to �750 (up from �590).

PART-TIME STUDENTS 520,000 part-time undergraduates 85,000 to benefit from extra support 65% in full-time jobs 41% receive fee support from employer 39% have dependent children 68% are women average age 37 42% are self-financing

Mr Rammell also announced an increase in the amount to be made available to part-time students throught the Access to Learning Fund, which will help with costs such as childcare - rising from �3m this year to �12m in 2006.

"The support needed by part-time students varies considerably. Our new package will protect the participation of students in the most challenging financial circumstances," said Education Secretary Ruth Kelly.

But there were concerns from student leaders who attacked the proposals as still leaving too many financial barriers in the way of people wanting to get degrees through part-time study.

"We would like to see much more financial support for part-time students, especially since they are often those who have children or disabilities or who have come back into education after a break," said National Union of Students vice-president, Julian Nicholds.

"These are the very students that the government's widening participation agenda seeks to draw into the higher education system," he said.

'Shortcomings'

Roger Kline, from the lecturers' union Natfhe, welcomed the move towards supporting part-time students - but said that "its shortcomings still contradict the stated government aim of widening higher education participation. Only one in six part-time students are expected to benefit from this".

The biggest changes in the student finance reform package, being introduced next autumn, will be the increase of tuition fees to an upper limit of �3,000 per year - and allowing students to pay this back after they have begun earning at least �15,000 per year.

But, while part-time students will face the higher fees, they will not be allowed to defer payment - prompting complaints from universities that this would reduce part-time student numbers and put courses at risk.

The level of fees that universities can charge part-time students still remains unregulated.

The CMU group of new universities has broadly welcomed the extra support, but points out that the continued growth of part-time study will be crucial to the government's ambitions to widen access to higher education.

'Subsidising employers'

In the past four years, the number of undergraduate part-time students has risen by 24%, says the CMU.

About 43% of undergraduate students are part-time - and in some universities, particularly new universities, a majority of students are taking part-time courses.

But Mr Rammell rejected suggestions that part-time students should have financial support similar to full-time students - arguing that they were very different groups and that most part-time students were in work and many already received funding from employers.

Extending the student loan to part-time students would cost an extra �350m per year, he said.

"Extending fee loans to all part-timers would be a major drain on the higher education budget - I think we can find better uses for that money," he said.

And he said that before 1998, "there was no government fee whatsoever available to low-income part-timers".

The higher education representative organisation, Universities UK, says that it wants part-time students to have support equivalent to full-time students.

But Geoffrey Copland, Universities UK vice president, said that he welcomed the improved support for part-time students - as the first steps "on a long road".

Dr Copland, vice-chancellor of the University of Westminster, says that there "needs to be some more radical thinking about the way institutions with significant numbers of part-time students are funded".

He says that part-time students might be counted as "fractions" in funding terms, but universities had to provide services for them as full individuals.