Now pupils might miss out on a place at university if their parents have good jobs

Universities are to be set targets within two years for admitting students whose parental income falls below a given level - expected to be around £27,500.

They face losing out on funds and being 'named and shamed' as socially exclusive in national league tables if they fail to progress towards the goals.

But while income information will be held centrally for monitoring purposes, admissions tutors will be given details only of parentsoccupations and not their salary - raising the prospect of blanket discrimination against well-paid jobs.

The use of parental income data met with protests last night and was condemned as a dramatic extension of so-called 'social engineering' in university admissions.

Details of parents' salaries held by the Student Loans Company will be used to monitor the proportion of less wealthy students each university is accepting. Elite institutions are already judged against swingeing targets for admitting more students from state schools and deprived areas as part of a Government drive to shake up the middle-class domination of places.

While there are no direct financial penalties for missing the targets, universities qualify for extra cash - the controversial 'postcode premium' - for every student they accept from a disadvantaged area.

Ultimately, they face being stripped of the right to charge top-up tuition fees of £3,000 a year if they fail to do enough to widen the class mix of students.

Meanwhile national league tables are produced every year exposing the universities which are least successful at recruiting disadvantaged students.

Private school leaders have warned that any further increases in state or working-class pupils can be achieved only through crude 'social engineering' since failures in the school system mean many are not adequately prepared for university.

Critics warned the new parental income target being imposed by ministers raised the prospect of discrimination against deserving candidates from better-off backgrounds.

Admissions tutors cannot be told the precise salaries of applicants' parents due to data protection restrictions.

However the university admissions service, UCAS, recently revealed that staff will be told the occupation of the main breadwinner in an applicant's family from 2009, with the aim of allowing them to better assess students' backgrounds.

Critics warned this information would easily allow universities to estimate family earnings, raising the prospect of institutions selecting likely to help meet parental income targets.

Pat Langham, president of the Girls' Schools Association, said: 'What next - height and hair colour? I am totally in favour of widening access. I was a "non-traditional" student myself but I achieved a place at university on the basis of my results at A-level, an interview and a school reference.

'No one asked for or needed to know what my parents did, how much they earned or where we lived. I was accepted on merit.'

A further planned target will judge universities according to how many students they attract whose parents did not go to university. UCAS will elicit this information using a new question in application forms from next year.

The new targets - dubbed simply 'benchmarks' by the Government - were revealed in a recentlypublished report from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Mrs Langham, the head of feepaying Wakefield Girls' High School, warned the system threatened to throw up anomalies where millionaire property developers could describe themselves to admissions tutors as builders in the hope of improving their children's chances.

Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said: 'These new performance indicators will help to give us a wider and more sensitive picture of participation in higher education by non-traditional students which will inform our continuing work on improving access.'