There will be more cash to help poorer students and a £3,000 cap on fees throughout the lifetime of the next Parliament.
But while most Labour rebels say Mr Clarke has done too little to avert a revolt, some university vice-chancellors say he has done too much to enable them to raise the cash they need.
Even though Tony Blair’s staked his authority on getting MPs to approve his idea of tuition fees, he was conspicuously absent from the Commons when his Education Secretary made his statement.
What Charles Clarke announced was a package aimed at helping poorer students through university, but the price of that was MPs voting for the variable fees so many of them regard as unacceptable.
What so many Labour MPs object to is the idea that the newer universities like London Metropolitan should be allowed to charge lower fees than the top ones as a way of recruiting students.
Then the same universities will be able to charge students less than the maximum top up fees of £3000 for less popular, or more vocational courses.
Bristol, for example, though in the top 20, might want to charge less for undersubscribed courses like engineering.
Mr Clarke did say there would be an independent review to see whether variable fees were discouraging working class kids after three years.
But he was not prepared to budge on the principle. Instead, the concessions were all aimed at meeting the argument that working class kids won’t be able to afford to go the top universities.
Institutions charging the full £3,000 would be required to give the poorest students bursaries of £300.
In addition, the proposed new maintenance grant will be increased from £1,000 to £1,500 a year.
The proposed discount on their fees for the poorest students is to be kept at £1,200.
The government says that means the total package will mean a maximum tuition fee of £3,000.
But he has rejected raising the threshold at which students have to start paying back the fees.
And he's still looking at turning the £1,200 fee remission for the poorest students into an up-front payment, as many MPs wanted.
In the Commons, the opposition spokesmen scorned the concessions and concentrated on the politics.
But the real sticking point was variability.
Even though some MPs welcomed the concessions Mr Clarke had accepted, they wanted more.
That assumes Mr Clarke can get MPs to approve them in the first place, and it's by no means clear that he can.
Of the 162 Labour MPs who have signed the early day motion, perhaps 30 will be persuaded by the extra up-front help for poorer students.
Another 30 or so will be very tempted but feel they can’t vote for top up fees because they specifically promised not to do so in the 2001 manifesto. Some of those will abstain.
The remaining 100-odd say that it's the principle of variability that’s the sticking point for them.
The opposition of at least half of those is re-inforced by a dislike of Tony Blair and New Labour's embrace of market forces.
A few privately admit they see this as a way of bringing Blair down, but won't say this in public.
A northern Labour MP, with an impeccable trade unionist background, told me:
"I want him out. The time has come to move him on."
After the statement, Labour produced five examples of MPs who had been convinced by Mr Clarke, but the MP acting as the whip for the rebels said he had more than the 81 needed to defeat the government.
But MPs will be urged by the Chancellor’s of both the new and old universities to support the government.
Things could change in the two weeks before the vote, but as of this moment, the government would lose, and the Prime Minister would be humiliated.
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