Universities are calling on the government to put up tuition fees to stop them from sliding into decline.
As the new term begins for thousands of students, universities say they want tuition fees to be increased in line with inflation to tackle the sector’s growing financial problems.
Tuition fees for home students have been capped at £9,250 in England since 2017.
In a set of proposals seen by the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Universities UK, which represents 141 institutions, calls for increased tuition fees as well as the reinstatement of grants for the poorest students, higher maintenance loans and better access to mental health services for students up to the age of 25.
The call comes as record numbers of home students begin courses this month - but the number of international students is down.
The Office for Students has said that around 40 per cent of universities are expecting to return a budget deficit this year.
Universities UK said if investment in teaching students had kept up with inflation, funding per student would be in the region of £12,000-£13,000.
Meanwhile, recent research shows university students now need about £18,000 a year to live on - compared with the maximum loan of about £10,000.
Professor Dame Sally Mapstone told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “We are alert to the fact, of course, that when you say fees should go up, people are alarmed at the consequences for students, which is why we also think that it's very important that the support that students get in terms of maintenance loans and grants also be looked at.”
Dame Sally, also vice chancellor of the University of St Andrews, added: “It undoubtedly is the case that if you learn more, you earn more, and you have to look at the benefit of university education across a lifetime.
“There is very good evidence that if you go to university in your 20s and in your 30s, you will be earning more than if you didn't. Although the £12,000 to £13,000 figure is very much within our proposals, we are not saying that fees should go up to that."
A spokeswoman for the Department for Education in England said it had "inherited a challenging set of circumstances in higher education", adding: “The education secretary has taken the crucial first step of refocusing the role of the Office for Students on key areas such as monitoring financial sustainability, to ensure universities can secure their financial health in the longer term.”
Former education secretary and chancellor of Hull university Alan Johnson told the Today programme that both students and universities need financial help.
He said: “There needs to be help for university students in this system but what we don’t need is to throw the whole system up in the air, what we don’t need is to go back to universities being the preserve of a privileged elite and what we don’t need is some kind of idea that you can manage universities on the basis of what it was like in the 1950s when so few students went there.”
Earlier this month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told university leaders she was looking at “all of the options” to solve the "complex problems" they faced.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer promised to support scrapping fees - during his Labour leadership campaign, in 2020 - but later abandoned his pledge.
It would now be “politically very difficult to put up tuition fees”, Rose Stephenson, from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), said.
