Top six universities hold the lead on league tables for 15 years

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Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College London, LSE, University College London and Warwick have appeared in the top ten every year since national tables began in 1992.

University funding chiefs analysed three newspaper tables which rank universities on a range of measures including teaching quality, graduate job prospects, standards of research, staff to student ratios and drop-out rates.

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Oxford, and five other universities, have been in the top 10 since league tables began

The tables then give an overall rating to universities and the Higher Education

Funding Council for England found the same six have been consistently ranked in the top ten.

The HEFCE report said students will increasingly look to university league tables if tuition fees rise higher than the current £3,000-a-year.

But it also voiced concerns over the quality and usefulness of the tables.

It said the rankings largely reflected "reputational factors" such as levels of entry qualifications and standards of degree obtained.

There were "possible tensions between league table performance and academic standards", fuelling concern that universities faced pressure to award more firsts and 2:1s to boost their rankings.

The analysis, conducted by the Open University and Hobsons Research, covered league tables in the Times, Sunday Times and the Guardian, which were first drawn up in 1992, 1998 and 1999 respectively.

The report warned the influence of league tables will increase if the cap on tuition fees for full-time undergraduate courses is raised or lifted altogether.

It added: "It is possible that ranking position will affect an institution's ability to charge the highest fees across all its courses."

An international league table last year showed Oxford and Cambridge tying for second place behind Harvard. In all, four UK institutions made the world top ten.