Two students at Balliol College who had been given a deadline of paying £1,000 tuition fees by Friday, the last day of term, are continuing their protest - with around a hundred fellow students demonstrating their support at a rally outside the Bodleian Library.

Kate Atkinson and Alice Nash, who want the government to withdraw the tuition fees introduced this year, have been told that refusal to pay will mean a ban from university premises.

Oxford has given protesting students until the end of term to pay

But a spokesman for the university, playing down the prospect of a "showdown", says that the first-year students will be able to return for the new term if they pay during the Christmas holidays.

Even if they continue to refuse to pay, the university says there is a possibility that the students could remain at college until exams at the end of next term - offering the prospect of more time to resolve the dispute.

Another 12 students at St Hilda's College and Somerville College are refusing to pay fees, but their colleges have not imposed a payment deadline and negotiations are expected to continue next year.

The Oxford University Student Union has expressed its "total support for the students' legitimate civil disobedience". Union president, Josh Bell, says that next year the non-payment campaign will be stepped up. "They can't send down 2,000 students," he said.

But the protest, which could end in the removal of the students from the university, has only met with lukewarm support from the National Union of Students at national level.

A spokesman for the union said that it supported the students' cause rather than their method and said that its current main concern was the number of students dropping out from university because of their inability to pay fees.