It is unjust and economically inefficient to deny bright but poor students access to postgraduate study by cutting funding

What should David Cameron's priorities for government be? Postgraduate education, postgraduate education, postgraduate education. No, don't click the back button just yet, bear with me. Our current state of postgraduate funding is nothing short of a scandal, with dire economic and moral implications. Yet no one seems to want to talk about it.

Thousands of able students are having their educational and professional careers prematurely halted for lack of funding. In truth, it barely exists, and as a result the barriers to entry to our most elite educational tier for poor and even middle-income students are truly enormous. Would-be postgraduates suffer the injustice of seeing their wealthier (and potentially less able) counterparts majestically ascend the educational ladder without interruption.

In 2008, 30% of independently educated university students completed their postgraduate courses, compared with 23% of students from state schools, and the gap is widening. This is despite evidence from the same study that privately educated students on average do worse at undergraduate level than their state school counterparts. Privilege is being rewarded at the expense of merit. Interestingly, in 2002, when research council grants were more generous and more accessible, there was no gap at all.

Allow me to declare an interest. I have a place at the LSE for an MSc in international history, but barring a lottery win (something I have recently started to play, as I hear you're more likely to win than receive a research council award) I have next to no hope of paying the £10,000 a year fees. I know dozens of people, from universities up and down the land, in exactly the same position.

Students naively approach their careers service, or go online hoping to find some comprehensive system to apply to. Big mistake. We might find dribs and drabs, the detritus of the odd endowment here, the occasional bequest there – but as it stands, unless you're the son of a curate with connections to the historic county of Rutland, or some similarly absurd requirement, you are unlikely to find much in the way of funding. We no longer have the institutional framework in place to deal with it. Recent reforms make it impossible for aspiring postgraduates to apply directly to the research councils. Consequently many institutions have chosen to pull the ladder up on masters courses and fund doctorates alone. The one lifeline for poor but talented students to fulfil their aspirations has disappeared, with a quiet and unreported whimper.

But when times are hard, why does this matter and why should you care? Because social mobility matters. Our higher education system is one of the few world-class sectors this country has left; we allow bright but poor students to slip through its net at our peril. As Disraeli said, it is "upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends". In a competitive global economy, the emphasis is increasingly placed on higher and higher levels of educational attainment. It is at once unjust and economically inefficient that a huge swathe of students should be denied access to education that is increasingly becoming an economic and professional necessity, rather than an educational luxury.

That doesn't just apply to the young; changing work practices means the ability to retrain mid-career is now essential. Anyone who doubts the productive benefits universities and research funding deliver should read Shahid Yusuf's excellent publication on the subject.

A great deal of scrutiny is rightly applied to the fairness of undergraduate admissions; but why should we stop caring about something at age 21 when it vexes us so much at 18? The principle is just the same. Why are we not more concerned about the legions of talented but less well-off students who could make truly brilliant academics, policy makers, businessmen and civil servants but are cruelly denied the opportunity to flourish by the free market in postgraduate applications?

With an ever-increasing premium being placed on masters and doctoral courses, the dearth of postgraduate funding requires swift and urgent attention. Either a new system of graduate loans or more open scholarships would help to redress the injustice. If we continue to deny the most talented students access to our best courses and best institutions, we'll all be poorer for it.

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