Dundee University has vowed to maintain all its additional places for poorer students after the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) withdrew funding.
The university is dipping into its funds to keep the programme going despite a £10 million hole in its 2016/17 budget.
St Andrews University said it is still investigating what support it can offer.
The scheme creates extra university places for applicants from deprived backgrounds. The SFC, which hands out government cash to the sector, backed out of bankrolling next year’s places citing funding pressures after the Scottish Government cuts its grant by 3.3%.
It said that universities “undertook to deliver additional places for widening access without further funding from SFC” during talks earlier this year.
A St Andrews University spokesman said: “We’re still considering how we can maintain and expand our commitment to widening access, and we will not stop working to support societal progress towards social mobility and fairness.”
A Dundee University spokesman said: “We will be filling the same number of widening access places in 2016/17, regardless of funding decisions.”
Earlier this month, the SFC proposed core grant cuts of £4m to Tayside and Fife’s universities.
“Modern” universities like Abertay have received no additional places under the scheme, which was introduced to encourage those institutions with a small intake of students from disadvantaged backgrounds to take more.