Oxford students are seeking support for an alternative to university tuition fees.

The proposals, drawn up by the Oxford University Student Union, call for an end to the fees and suggest higher education should be funded by higher rates of tax for top earners.

They also say all students should be given a non-means-tested £5,000 grant each year to cover living costs.

The ideas were launched by OUSU president Helena Puig Larrauri right, and vice president Louise McMullan, left, as the Government gave details of its plan to allow universities to charge variable top-up tuition fees.

Under Education Secretary Charles Clarke's scheme universities will be able to charge fees of up to £3,000 a year.

The NUS, which represents 5m UK students, fears this would deter students from poorer backgrounds from applying to universities which charge the maximum fee, and described the proposals as a "disaster for the future of higher education", despite a package of concessions -- including grants of up to £3,000 a year for students from less well-off homes -- designed to help poorer students and appease Labour MPs opposed to variable fees.

Ms Larrauri said: "With this alternative proposal we want to show there's another viable and better way to fund higher education."

"The current funding system provides insufficient financial support, the available support is wrongly targeted and students are forced into crippling debts."

OUSU's proposals have been sent to Labour MPs in an attempt to generate support.

However, the university's Chancellor, former Conservative Party chairman Chris Patten, said top-up fees were a necessary evil.

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