THE Tories’ “American dream” of education privatisation has descended into an English nightmare, lecturers’ union UCU leader Sally Hunt will tell academics today.

Ms Hunt will accuse Universities Minister David Willetts of being blinded to the failure of his policies by ideology in her keynote speech to members in Manchester. 

She will explain how “poor attendance, huge debts and low standards” are the result of the free-for-all that the US-inspired minister is striving for. 

His failure to take action over the spiralling cost to the taxpayer of £9,000-a-year tuition fees is just one example Ms Hunt will point to. 

The Star has revealed how Mr Willetts is threatening to lift the limit on tuition fees even though the Sutton Trust has estimated the Treasury will be forced to pick up a £30,000 bill for every student under the current system because huge loans are being written off.

But Ms Hunt will concentrate her fire on the Tory minister’s bid to create an education market by handing millions in public subsidies to for-profit colleges who have dire education standards and optional attendance. 

“Lecturers sometimes joke that this would be an easy job without the students,” she will say. 

“But some of the for-profit colleges at the centre of the scandal about poor standards and little attendance by students, this seems to have been taken literally.

“Lectures with literally no one in them except the tutor. Paid for by the taxpayer.”

Delivering a scathing verdict on the situation, she will declare: “David Willets’s American dream has become an English nightmare.

“The coalition once claimed to have settled the funding of our colleges and universities for a generation. 

“But the reality is that it is now a disastrous, unstable mess.”

Ms Hunt will come out fighting for her members today after an enforced six month delay as the result of being diagnosed with chronic ulcerative colitis.

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said: "Our reforms have put universities on a sustainable footing and this is driving up the quality of the student experience as well as stimulating economic growth. Through these reforms we are protecting those on lower incomes and people from disadvantaged backgrounds are now applying in record numbers. 

“Private colleges have an important role to play in providing students with an alternative to university. Where standards are not being met we are taking action.

"The process to designate courses for student support has been strengthened considerably and where we have found evidence of abuse, we have taken swift and decisive action”