By Mike Baker BBC education correspondent

We know they can teach us a thing or two about cricket - but what about universities?

Do the answers to the government's political problems over student top-up fees lie in Australia?

By remarkable coincidence, the Australian government is currently embarked on a review of its universities which is very similar to the one promised in Britain.

The issues, indeed the language and rhetoric, are almost identical.

Same dilemma

Both countries are worried about how their elite universities can compete with the rich Ivy League universities in the USA.

British and Australian vice-chancellors fear they are losing out to Harvard, Yale and Princeton as magnets for the best academic brains and the biggest research contracts.

Moreover both governments have decided the taxpayer alone cannot bear all the burden of funding universities.

Ministers on both sides of the world are wary of the political consequences of charging more for a degree

Indeed education ministers in both countries have been pointing out the inequity of asking non-graduate taxpayers to subsidise the university careers of those who will, mostly, go on to better-paid jobs.

In Australia top-up fees are on the agenda, although they refer to them more accurately as deregulated fees - a system whereby each university can set its own fee levels for different courses.

Australian vice-chancellors led the call for deregulated fees and the Education Minister, Brendan Nelson, has responded by describing them as "an interesting proposition".

However ministers on both sides of the world are wary of the political consequences of charging more for a degree.

Fee levels

Australia, though, is already farther down the road of charging student fees than Britain.

And, as British ministers scratch their heads over an option which both brings in enough money but doesn't terrify middleclass voters, they might well be looking to emulate Aussie ideas.

Australia moved away from "free" university tuition in 1987 with the introduction of a small up-front fee.

A bigger change came with the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) in 1989. This fee began small but has grown over the years.

Since 1997 it has gone from a single, flat-rate fee to three payment levels for different types of degree.

The cheapest - for arts, humanities and social sciences - is A$3,598 or around �1,280.

The middle level - for maths, computing, science, engineering, business and economics courses - is 45,125 or approximately �1,823.

The top level - for medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and law - runs to A$5,999 or �2,134.

These fees are higher than the current means-tested contribution required of British students, currently set at �1,100 a year irrespective of degree subject.

Discount

Nevertheless, the HECS fee represents, on average, only around a quarter of the actual cost of a degree.

The Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, is worried about the deterrent effect on students from poorer backgrounds

But it is not so much the level of the Australian fee which interests British policy-makers as the method of charging it.

Australian undergraduates can choose to pay their fees up-front in return for a 25% discount.

Most cannot afford that, so they go for the second option. This, in effect, involves taking a loan to cover the fees.

The loan carries a 0% real rate of interest and is repaid through the tax system once graduates have started to earn. Repayment begins once incomes rise above A$23,000 (Australian) or around �8,300.

Effect

The advantage of this system is that the up-front payments mean the flow of income starts immediately while the availability of the post-graduation repayment tax ensures, in theory at least, that no-one is prevented from going to university by poverty.

These arguments should attract both the Treasury, which fears a graduate tax won't bring in money quickly enough, and the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, who is worried about the deterrent effect on students from poorer backgrounds.

So what has happened to student demand in the decade since Australia started to charge tuition fees?

The news appears to be encouraging: the total number of students has grown by 30%.

The biggest increase has been amongst overseas students but the number of Australian students has risen by 19%.

Poorer students

At the same time the universities' income has grown too: from A$5.5bn in 1991 to A$10.4bn in 2002.

Not all of this growth is down to fee income but fees, including those paid by overseas students and graduates, represent 36% of university revenue.

Once you start to charge modest fees there is soon pressure for those fees to rise

But what of the deterrence factor?

According to papers submitted to the Australian government's higher education review, the number of students from "disadvantaged" backgrounds has grown in line with the overall expansion.

In fact, students from the poorest quartile of the population make up just under 15% of Australian students, almost exactly the same proportion as a decade ago.

So it would appear that charging fees the Australian way does not reduce the proportion of students from poorer homes. Nor does it increase it either.

Upwards pressure

But what would differential, or top-up, fees do? That remains guesswork in both Australia and the United Kingdom.

So far Australia has only had differential fees for three broad tiers of degree subjects and these have not been in operation long enough to give a clear pattern.

But on method of payment - with students getting the choice of either up-front fees or a graduate-tax - we may have something to learn from "down under".

But the Australian experience also sounds a warning: once you start to charge modest fees there is soon pressure for those fees to rise.

And, even at their current level, fees in Australia have not proved to be a solution to the problem of funding world-class public universities.

While there is still time, perhaps Charles Clarke should pack his bags and join our cricketers for some Australian lessons.