Students from modest backgrounds are often unaware of the financial support available from universities, a study has found.
Bursaries and scholarships offered by universities are too complex and many students, parents and school advisers don’t understand the system, the report said.
It warned that prestigious universities may be tempted to use extra income from higher tuition fees to boost scholarships — to attract the best students — rather than fund bursaries for poorer students.
The findings, in a report for the Office for Fair Access, is seen as a blow for universities, which are under pressure to show they are broadening their student intake in return for an anticipated rise in tuition fees.
The research, by Professor Claire Callender of Birkbeck College, part of London University, is the first comprehensive study of how bursaries are viewed by students, parents and school advisers as well as universities.
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She found a consistent lack of awareness of what was on offer after surveying 5,000 students eligible for full or partial grants, more than 100 parents, 74 universities and 150 advisers in schools and colleges.
Universities spent £192 million last year on bursaries, a fifth of their income from charging higher tuition fees. Those charging the maximum fee of £3,200 - virtually all of them - are required to give students on a full grant a minimum bursary of £310 a year.
In practice, many give substantially more. The 20 top research universities in the Russell Group, which tend to attract students from wealthier backgrounds and have fewer students who qualify, pay on average £1,500 a year compared with £700 from new universities.
The research found that school advisers often left students and their parents to find out about bursaries themselves, and many applications were submitted once the student had applied for, or accepted, a university place — too late for the size of bursary to influence their choice.
Twenty nine per cent of students said availability of financial support influenced whether they wanted to go to university and where they would apply.
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Lack of awareness of bursaries was highest amongst black students, and those whose families earned more than £25,000 a year — many of whom assumed wrongly that they would not qualify.
Professor Callender said universities had provided new financial incentives for potential students, especially by tailoring their own bursary schemes. But she said their effectiveness had been limited by lack of awareness, and the complexity of different support on offer.
She also said that their aims might be undermined by separate scholarships offered by elite universities to attract the brightest students to raise their academic reputation and boost their league table rankings.
Research in the US showed this type of scholarship was awarded disproportionately to white students from higher income groups, she said.
“There is a risk that, in a tight fiscal environment, non means-tested schemes may be diverting resources away from bursaries for low income students and potentially diminish the [higher education] opportunities of these low-income students”.
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David Willetts, the shadow Universities Secretary, said: “It is shocking that fewer than half of all people about to enter university are well-informed about the student bursary system. I wonder how many more never consider university as a result of this lack of knowledge.”