It is revealed in several newspapers today that the London School of Economics has been operating a secret quota system to favour the admission of state-educated students. It has been doing this, no doubt, because of the pressure from the government.

The news will increase the perception of those who pay a great deal to sent their children to private schools that they are being discriminated against. This may add to the various factors tending towards a possible re-structuriong of university education over the next ten or twenty years. Britain may develop some private, fee-paying universities. Other factors pushing in this direction are:

• The top universities including Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Economics believe that the money they receive as part of state education is inadequate for them to cling onto their already doubtful ranking as world class. They are already flirting with the idea of 'going private'.

• Some universities, especially the London School of Economics, receive a substantial income already from foreign students. For them, it would not be such a major break to 'go private'.

• Students (or their parents) are now subject to top-up fees even when they stay in the state system. So the difference between the cost of going private and staying with the state is less than previously

• Gradually parents are learning from their children just how inferior state-funded university education in Britain is becoming. They hear how little contact the students have with teaching staff, how few essays they are set to write and, in effect, how much time is being wasted.

• Some parents also fear that universities, in one sense, actually damage the life chances of their children by instilling them with anti-business, neo-Socialist attitudes.

Already there is a trend for parents to send their children to American universities, at considerable expense. This trend is likely to continue unless some British universities go private.

James Bartholomew is author of The Welfare State We're In. Read the blog of the book here.