The Conservative Party has raised questions about the government's motives after it was revealed that 13 colleges saved from a funding hole are in Labour constituencies.
The claims follow last months report from the Commons public accounts committee, criticising the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) for its "reckless" management of the college rebuilding scheme.
The 13 building projects will now continue following a review, with the total amount directed into the schemes reaching £714m, funded from £554m of public money.
However, 40 per cent of frozen projects are in Conservative or Liberal Democrat constituencies.
The Conservatives said it was "inconceivable" that it was only those 13 projects that merited funding.
A party source said: "It looks very much like the government is playing politics with the further education crisis."
Shadow universities and skills secretary David Willets called on ministers to look again at the assessment criteria for college rebuilding projects, and to be "fairer and more transparent".
The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, which administers the work of the LSC, dismissed the claims.
"This was an open objective process carried out by the LSC, not government," a department spokesman said.
"The LSC worked with the whole further education sector to achieve a set of objective criteria that were put into a prioritisation process."
The public accounts committee, in its report on the physical infrastructure of colleges, criticised the government skills quango for its mismanagement of the programme.
The cross-party group of MPs said the council had failed to introduce measures to prioritise projects and control the total costs of the programme.
