NORTH-EAST students from working class families are being put off going to university by tuition fees.

Liberal Democrat Youth Affairs spokesman Lembit Opik, a former Newcastle city councillor, claimed yesterday that youngsters in the Labour heartland are hardest hit by the charges.

He said: "Places like the North-East will suffer the most.

"In the leafy Home Counties, where there is more money, fewer people will be affected, although some will.

"Up here kids are facing bills which will just encourage them to find work and say 'sod it, I'm not going to run up a debt'."

The Government has introduced a £1,050 tuition fee for English students.

In Scotland, the Liberal Democrats managed to get the fee abolished.

Earlier this year, Labour ministers started a row about Oxbridge "elitism'', after gifted North Tyneside student Laura Spence was refused a place at Oxford.

The state school youngster went on to be accepted by Harvard, in the US, and it was claimed that some British universities are only interested in public school pupils.

Now, there is concern that the Government campaign to get more people from ordinary backgrounds into higher education is being hampered because of student debt.

Figures have shown that universities with higher numbers of working class students often have higher drop-out rates.

Mr Opik, speaking at Durham University, said: "You don't have to be a genius to figure out that the poorer you are the harder it is going to be to go to university or college.

"So many ministers who are willing to introduce tuition fees benefited from good grants and decent higher education investment, when they were students.

"It seems a bit off to withdraw that privilege for today's young people.''

Emily Fieran-Reed, of Durham Students Union, said: "Figures show that university applications are decreasing.

"A lot of people aren't applying because they don't want to get into debt.'