Universities across the Midlands have suffered a fall in student applications for September - the first academic year when institutions will be able to charge maximum topup fees of £3,000.

According to UCAS, applications to Birmingham University are down 6.3 per cent, from 38,606 in 2005 to 36,178 this year.

At Aston University, the decrease is 8.2 per cent, from 13,399 in 2005 to 12,305 in 2006, and total applications received by the University of Central England by January 15 was down 8.4 per cent to 13,135.

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Warwick University suffered a marginal decrease of 0.6 per cent, from 28,987 to 28,819.

The trend has been reflected nationally with applications falling, for the first time in six years, by about 13,000.

Nationally, the total number of applications is down by 3.4 per cent on 2005 but the total figure still represents an increase of 5.2 per cent when compared with 2004, according to UCAS.

Most universities are charging the maximum top-up fee of £3,000 per year.

Andrew Wilford, West Midlands convenor for campaigns and communications for the National Union of Students, said the fees were "off-putting" for a substantial number of students.

"We are not surprised by the fact that the number of applications has gone down by a total of almost 30,000 in England where top-up fees are being introduced, and numbers going up by 1.8 per cent in Scotland where they don't have them," he said.

"We are concerned about the number of people who will not go to university now. We estimate that students will come out of university with £27,000 of debt for an average course after the top-up fees come in."

He said bursary schemes were of limited use.

"We are concerned about the impact to a wider range of students, to whom the impact of an extra £3,000 per year is off-putting," he added.

A spokesman for UCE said the application figures did not reflect the large number of students who applied direct to the university or via the nursing and teacher training bodies.

"Although the UCAS data shows an 8.4 per cent decline between our 2006 and 2005 applications, this is a rise of four per cent over 2004 applications at the same point - if you like, that's a four per cent rise on the last directly comparable year," said the spokesman.

"It's widely accepted that there was a surge in applications last year as people tried to 'beat' the introduction of the new system and gave up gap years that they might otherwise have taken."

Subject areas experiencing a decline, according to UCAS, include law, down by 4.5 per cent; psychology, down by 6.2 per cent, and economics, which has seen applications drop two per cent.

There are increases, however, in subjects such as nursing, up by 15.4 per cent; social work, up by 7.4 per cent and maths, up by 11.5 per cent.