Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the federal government will "have another go" at getting laws to deregulate university fees through parliament after they were voted down in the Senate for a second time.
"We will have another go at this," Mr Abbott told Sydney radio station 2SM.
"Just about all the vice-chancellors say if our universities are to flourish in the years ahead, they need to lose the dead hand of Canberra."
The Abbott government's reforms failed 34 to 30 on Tuesday evening, with all but three opposition senators voting down the bill.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne says he will keep fighting to deregulate fees, promising to bring the reforms back before the parliament and continue discussions with the crossbench.
If Labor and the Greens continue to oppose the bill, the government will need to convince three more senators to back the proposal.
Those votes could come from Jacqui Lambie, Glenn Lazarus, Dio Wang, Ricky Muir or Nick Xenophon, who all voted against the bill.
Mr Abbott said he would "keep talking" to the crossbenchers in an attempt to convince them to support university reforms.
"As the university vice-chancellors say again and again and again, if we want to have the world's best universities, we've got to give them more flexibility than they have now," he added.
Mr Abbott said under the proposed changes, students "won't need to pay a dollar upfront".
"As a result of these changes there were going to be about 50,000 scholarships for disadvantaged youngsters and that's why Labor's complaints about this were just completely misplaced".
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