Then overall numbers of students from England below the AAB borderline would be reduced.
BBC: Top students expansion plan 'could hit social mobility'
Since non-AAB quotas overall have been cut, middling institutions face a squeeze in student numbers and income.
ECONOMIST: The university landscape is changing, but not fast enough
The numbers getting AAB grades or equivalent were lower than expected he said - 80, 000 rather than 85, 000.
If popular universities expand to take more AAB students, their less popular but equally costly competitors will have fewer.
ECONOMIST: The university landscape is changing, but not fast enough
Birmingham, East Anglia and Exeter are all expected to make extra room for AAB students in clearing, but few others.
ECONOMIST: The university landscape is changing, but not fast enough
This year has seen changes to the admissions process - with universities allowed to recruit an unlimited number of students with AAB A-level grades or better.
University finances would be destabilised as the system would encourage a "race to the bottom" on one hand and competition for AAB students on the other, he added.
Although A-level grades between two applicants might appear to be the same - such as grades AAB - this does not show the range of subjects they have taken.
But with top A-level grades falling slightly, there are fewer students with these AAB grades than expected - and not all of the anticipated extra places have been filled.
Last year there was no limit on places for applicants who achieved AAB grades - and while it meant expansion in some universities, it meant unfilled places in others.
"The complication for universities is if you don't recruit the same percentage of students with AAB or better than you had last year what happens is you lose the funding for those students, " he said.
Even those with low numbers of grade AAB students will get involved in the bidding war for those with top grades - because they will be seen as a kite mark of an institution's success, he added.
But he warned that because the way these places were likely to be allocated, a lot of high-achieving students who narrowly miss out on getting their prediction of an AAB could "find themselves in clearing" looking for a place.
BBC: Top students expansion plan 'could hit social mobility'
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