Irish students planning to study in Britain from next September will face a means test from the British government to determine the level of fees they should pay.

British colleges are to start charging tuition fees of up to £1,000 per course from the start of the 1998-99 academic year, with the level of fees paid falling according to parental income.

It was planned that local councils would deal with the means tests for EU and British students; however, last week the higher-education minister, Baroness Blackstone, announced that a central government unit would be established to deal with the means test. The unit, staffed by a team of linguists and European tax experts, will deal with all applications from EU residents, of whom the largest single group will be students from the Republic.

In 1996, there were more than 14,000 Irish students studying in British and Northern Ireland colleges, of whom 10,000 were undergraduates. Last year, approximately 11,000 Irish students applied for places in these colleges, of whom an estimated 3,000 to 4000 were expected to take up their offers.