In an influential new scheme, the government is to reserve places at Guy's, King's and St Thomas's Medical School exclusively for the use of state school pupils from deprived areas. The move follows a recent report from the Sutton Trust, which criticised university access for comprehensive school students compared with that of independent schools.

From 2001, ringfenced places at the medical school will be paid for by the Higher Education Funding Council and will be offered to students who have come from educationally or socially disadvantaged backgrounds. It is unclear whether these offers will involve lowering the A level entrance grades traditionally needed to study medicine at the university.

Nick Jenkins, chair of the British Medical Association's Medical Students Committee, commented in response to the scheme, "We support this measure and we would like to see it introduced in more medical schools, but it will only work if backed up with sufficient funding from the government to ensure that the best potential doctors from all backgrounds are able to enter the medical profession."

The government has recently criticised university elitism, following the media frenzy over Laura Spence, a state educated teenager who was refused a place to study medicine at Oxford. Education secretary David Blunkett stated earlier this month that, "We want far more pupils to see university, including top universities, as a natural destination and not a world apart." Addressing the National Association of Head Teachers' annual conference, Mr Blunkett pledged to break down the privileges that come from "having gone to the right school, or having been brought up in the right family."

Critics have accused the government of using universities as scapegoats for its own failure in higher education. "Here's a government that, at a stroke, abolished maintenance grants and introduced tuition fees, saying it wanted to widen access. It is the height of hypocrisy," said Evan Harris, higher education spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.

In a separate move, the Russell Group of leading research universities is currently considering new funding proposals to widen university access. These include introducing a system of loans to cover tuition fees of up to £30 000, based on the degree chosen and the parental income of students. Under the proposals, the loans would be repaid as a percentage of graduate income at interest rates 3% above inflation rates¾student loans are currently repayable at an interest rate that is equal to the rate of inflation. The tuition fees paid would go some way towards funding scholarships for students otherwise unable to afford a university education. If implemented, these plans would move UK universities towards the funding system used by the American ivy league universities, where a needs-blind admissions policy is funded by private donors.