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A dozen universities are considering dropping fees in response to a tempting offer from the government

This summer, Ministers had laid out specifics in a White Paper declaring that English universities who charged £7,500 or lower would be eligible to bid for a share of 20,000 funded student places, in an attempt to discourage universities from charging the full £9,000 per year fees.

The Office for Fair Access (Offa) confirmed that 12 reputed universities, all of whom were planning to charge over the £7,500 criterion – including two institutions that plan to charge the maximum fee of £9,000, had expressed an interest in reducing their fees.

On Tuesday, the watchdog sent all universities an email with guidelines on how to lower their fees. It said they would need to re-release an agreement expressing how they would stretch their mix of students to guarantee more teenagers from low-income homes went to university.

“You may be considering measures to lower your institution's net average fee, in order to bid for places,” the email stated. “This guidance … sets out how to make any resulting changes.”

The Offa announced they received “about a dozen expressions of interest” from universities wanting to bid for the extra places.

From the twelve universities that had responded to the call, at least two are interested in cutting fees dramatically, while a further ten could cut back costs for 2012 students, according to the government watchdog.

However it is reported that none of the dozen universities hail from the leading Russell Group institutions, and the majority are newer post-1992 universities.

Students will commence applying this week for university courses starting in September, next year.

As a result of Coalition reforms passed last December, undergraduates setting out for university in autumn 2012 face up to £9,000 a year in fees. Universities intending on charging over £6,000 had to submit ‘access agreements’ to Offa setting out how they planned to back students and safeguard those from poorer homes from being deprived of the opportunity to attend university.

Approximately 47 out of 123 of English universities have revised their fees to £9,000, according to a report released in July by the higher education access watchdog, with the estimated average fee being £8,393.

Majority of students will finance their fees through Government subsidised loans which they will have to pay back when their salary reaches £21,000 per annum.