The vice chancellor of the University of Cambridge courted controversy in a speech today by criticizing the British government for “meddling” and for pressuring top institutions like hers to admit more graduates of public high schools.

“As institutions charged with education, research, and training, our purpose is not to be construed as that of handmaidens of industry, implementers of the skills agenda, or indeed engines for promoting social justice,” Alison Richard told her fellow vice chancellors, who are meeting this week in Cambridge for the annual conference of their representative organization, Universities UK.

Ms. Richard, a former Yale provost, went on to tell her colleagues that “we need the independence and autonomy to chart our individual institutional courses, and to experiment.”

Just last week Cambridge announced that the proportion of students it admitted from public schools had risen to 59 percent. But along with the University of Oxford, Cambridge and other top institutions remain under strong pressure from the government to increase the proportion of public-school students they admit.

Next year the British government will begin a much-anticipated review of the current tuition system, which allows some universities to charge undergraduates up to £3,000 a year. Ms. Richard emphasized that institutions like hers remained hampered by a significant gap in funds.

“We are competing, as some of you are, in a global market for the best Ph.D. candidates, with U.S. universities offering full-tuition fellowships and annual stipends of $22,000 upfront for five years,” she said. —Aisha Labi