Britain`s reputation as a world leader for university education could be lost within 10 years, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge warned yesterday. Standards will plummet unless universities resist the temptation to take on poor-quality students in an attempt to plug funding gaps, Professor Alison Richard told MPs. At present Cambridge and Oxford are second and third respectively in the world university league table rankings, beaten only by Harvard. Britain also has 29 universities in the top 200 and has achieved a worldwide reputation for academic excellence in higher education. Prof Richard told the education select committee that standards could be seriously compromised by the Government`s drive to increase student numbers. In particular, the trend to recruit foreign students for their higher fees could lead to "a downward spiral", she said. Ministers have set a target for 50 per cent of all 18- to 30-year-olds to have entered higher education by 2010. Prof Richard, previously Provost of Yale University, told MPs: "We have got maybe a decade to consolidate and position the system to retain its competitive edge. The risk I see to the UK system is that with the under-funding of our education activities historically, the temptation will be to go for volume rather than quality." She called for more investment in universities from both the Government and from private donors. It was also vital, she said, that undergraduates came from all class backgrounds. Cambridge must not become merely "a finishing school for the well-to-do".