University by-pass

A top City accountancy firm is piloting a fast-track management trainee scheme for 18-year-olds in a bid to attract highflying Oxbridge-standard students.

If, as seems likely, rival blue- chip companies follow suit, it could spark a brain drain of talented students away from Britain's ivy league institutions.

KPMG is recruiting 20 students from schools in the south east who will enrol on courses later this month leading to certified accountant status. The lure is a starting salary of Pounds 11,000 rising to around Pounds 20,000 in the final year of a four-year course and the prospect of becoming assistant managers at the age of 22 with a pay packet of Pounds 25,000.

This gives them several advantages over the 500 graduate trainees KPMG recruits each year: no debt, a wage more than twice the average graduate starting salary, and a status in the company hierarchy equal or higher than the traditional graduate trainees.

But budding accountants face stiff competition. Although the minimum entry requirement is BBB at A level, several have come with straight As, and all have sailed through the same rigorous assessment process employed to select graduates. David Miller, KPMG's graduate recruitment partner, said: "We have attracted some top-class applicants. There is a growing population of high calibre people who are choosing not to go to university, and we want to capture some of them for KPMG."

Students will combine hands-on work experience with two-week blocks of study timetabled around the exam schedule of the Association of Certified Accountants. After four years, they will be free to join rival firms. But since it is investing around Pounds 150,000 per student, KPMG is banking on the fact that most of the young highflyers will remain loyal.

If the pilot goes well, KPMG is expecting to introduce a national scheme, and the company stands to benefit as more students reject an ever more expensive elite higher education system. But Roly Cockman, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, doubted whether a non-university management scheme would succeed. "I don't think there is a lot in it. Most young people have got the message that your future is more assured if you have a degree."