The University of Sussex is struggling to admit students from working class backgrounds, new performance tables reveal today.

The country's leading universities are under pressure from the Government to increase the percentage of youngsters from less well-off families taking up courses.

But the Higher Education Funding Council said that of the 1,885 entrants at University of Sussex last year, only 16 per cent were from working class backgrounds.

This compared with an average across England's universities of 25 per cent.

The percentage of youngsters attending Sussex from state schools was 84 per cent, compared with an average of 86 per cent.

Working class entries at University of Brighton were 24 per cent and from state schools 93 per cent.

Margaret Hodge, the higher education minister, said: "Let's move from ivory towers to building bridges. Our best universities need to get out more and hunt out potential in their local communities."

Education Secretary Charles Clarke said the key was encouraging more applications from working-class students.

He said: "The evidence shows many of the children from the poorer backgrounds actually do better on the course when they get to university than people from the more well-off. They are more motivated and more committed."

Oxford and Cambridge had the smallest number of state school entrants, 53 per cent each.

Cambridge has the smallest proportion of working class students of a major university, just nine per cent, followed by Oxford on ten per cent and Bristol on 11 per cent.

But the figures also show undergraduates who enter Sussex university are more likely to stay the course, with a drop-out rate of 13 per cent. The national average is 16 per cent.

And 95 per cent of the university's graduates find work within six months, compared with an average of 93 per cent.

At the University of Brighton, the drop out rate was 16 per cent and the number of graduates in work within six months was 93 per cent.