AN ALMIGHTY last-minute rush is underway for places at colleges and universities this year - a development that poses a worrying question for the future.

A major reason for this sudden scramble is that, in a bid to avoid next year's introduction of tuition fees, droves of prospective undergraduates are dropping their plans to take the now-traditional "year out" before taking up a university place.

Now, an extra 80,000 students have suddenly joined the queue for college courses as the level of late applications has shot up by a third on last year.

Clearly, the prospect of the £3,000 minimum fees that students will be eligible for from 1998 has had a tremendous impact in the fortnight since they were confirmed by the government.

Yet, is this not a sign of a more serious development if thousands are bidding now to escape fees, if only for their first year at university - in that, in future, when they are firmly in place, thousands more might seek to avoid them altogether by not seeking university places at all.

Perhaps we are seeing a disturbing glimpse of things to come - that of students being priced out of a lifetime opportunity.

If so, it is not good for them, nor for the country if talent is to be wasted.

It may be that the £3billion gap in university funding has brought about the introduction of tuition fees.

But, even with the means-testing the government has introduced so that only those from families earning £34,000 a year or more will pay the £1,000 annual fee in full, this year's late rush to avoid the cost is an ominous indication that pay-to-learn might have also have deterrence as a dangerous side-effect.

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