ASTON University is set to charge students tuition fees of £9,000 a year – as much as Oxford and Cambridge.

It means graduates will be expected to repay fees of up to £27,000 for three years of teaching.

Proposals to increase fees from the current maximum of £3,375 to almost three times as much have been bitterly opposed by students, and sparked a series of angry demonstrations earlier this year.

But Aston said it needed to charge the maximum possible amount to continue providing a high quality education.

Universities are automatically allowed to charge up to £6,000. They can go above this, to a limit of £9,000, if they prove they are working hard to attract students from a wide range of backgrounds including those from working class and deprived families.

But this is unlikely to be an obstacle for Aston, which is widely seen as successful in attracting students from all sections of society. Currently, 91 per cent of Aston students attended state schools, compared with 81 per cent of Birmingham University students and 77 per cent of Warwick University students, according to the figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.