Almost one in five students at the universities of Brighton and Sussex will fail to complete their degrees, according to figures out today.

The projected drop-out figures are above average when compared with those for other universities, which range from one per cent at Cambridge and Oxford to 38 per cent at North London.

Seventy-seven per cent of students at Sussex are set to graduate and 74 per cent at Brighton.

Figures from the Higher Education Funding Council, which oversees the finance and administration of all universities in England, show the projected drop-out rate at Sussex as 18 per cent and 17 per cent at Brighton.

The council will ask Sussex to do something about its drop-out rate.

Both universities are meeting their targets for attracting state school pupils. At Sussex 82 per cent of students come from the state system and at Brighton 91 per cent.

But both have failed to meet targets for attracting students from the poorest backgrounds.

Sussex has been set a target of 11 per cent and achieved seven per cent. Brighton's target is 14 per cent and it has achieved ten per cent.

A spokesman for Sussex University said: "The vast majority of our students successfully complete their degrees.

"We are not too sure how these figures have been collated but our figures show more and more students at Sussex are completing their courses. It is of benefit neither to us nor the student if a course is not completed."