More than half a million dollars is being splurged on focus groups to help spruik uncapping university fees despite polling showing nearly three-quarters of people have never seen the taxpayer-funded ads the "market research" is helping design.

Polling conducted by UMR for the National Tertiary Education Union shows 74 per cent of the 1000 people surveyed could not recognise screen shots from the publicly-funded ads Education Minister Christopher Pyne announced earlier this month.

"Inappropriate and unacceptable": More than half a million dollars of taxpayer funds have been spent on a series of ads focusing on the government's proposed Higher Education reform. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Of those who had seen the ads, only half knew that they were to sell the Education Minister's agenda and nearly half of those said the ad made no difference to their views.

More than half of the total number surveyed said it was "inappropriate and unacceptable" for the government to spend public money to make the case for its higher education reforms.