The SDLP Minister of Further and Higher Education has become only the second Executive Minister to lose a vote in the Northern Assembly.
A motion calling for Mr Sean Farren to accept the recommendations of a report by his Assembly scrutiny committee on student financial support was tabled at Stormont yesterday. The committee's report called for the abolition of university fees and the extension of means-tested grants.
Graduates would pay deferred contributions towards their tuition once they earned £25,000 or more.
The Minister resisted the motion, tabling instead an amendment calling on him only to "take note" of the report.
Mr Farren's amendment was defeated by 35 votes to 33 with Sinn Fein, the DUP, the Women's Coalition and Alliance party voting together in a rare act of solidarity.
Only the Health Minister, Ms Bairbre de Brun, had previously been defeated, in a vote on the location of maternity services in Belfast.