Privatise top five UK universities to form Ivy League, says Imperial head

Sir Roy Anderson, head of Imperial College London, warned that Britain's world-leading reputation for higher education was under threat from funding cuts and a lack of government vision. He suggested elite academic institutions such as Imperial, Oxford, and Cambridge should be given the power to charge unlimited tuition fees and take on more overseas students.

In an exclusive interview with the Standard, Sir Roy called for a debate over the privatisation of the country's top five universities, which would also include the London School of Economics and University College London.

He suggested that the best universities should be allowed to "float free" from the Government's funding regime to charge unlimited fees, putting them on a par with US Ivy League institutions such as Princeton, Harvard and Yale.

Sir Roy said: "How important is higher education to UK Plc? Staggeringly so. It is a multi-billion-pound industry. It is one of the few things we are world competitive in.

"If you take the top five universities, they have enormous potential to earn income for Britain. How best to do that? My own view would be to privatise them. You don't want to be subject to the mores of government funding or changing educational structures."

Sir Roy's remarks come at a critical time for higher education. Chancellor Alistair Darling has ordered hundreds of millions of pounds to be cut from the college and university budget.

Ministers are due to launch a review of tuition fees to consider whether universities should be able to charge more than £3,000 per year. University vice-chancellors have already called for fees to rise to £6,500. Recent world rankings placed Britain second behind America, with four universities in the top 10.

Sir Roy said: "Higher education is a product that Britain does superbly. Even if in 20 years' time Imperial is a private institution able to compete with the Harvards and Yales, like them, I very much hope we would have the scholarship endowment to continue to take people from all walks of life."

Sir Roy also condemned the Government for being preoccupied with dying industries such as car manufacturing.