By Lucy Phillips
17 December 2010
A range of future funding options for Scottish universities have been announced by ministers, but tuition fees for Scottish students ‘remain off the table’.
Michael Russell, Scotland’s education secretary, published a higher education green paper yesterday, outlining six new possible streams of income for the nation’s universities.
It comes as Scotland’s higher education budget is to be cut by £1.3bn next year and English universities prepare to lift the cap on home tuition fees from £3,290 to up to £9,000 a year.
Options in the green paper include introducing some form of graduate contribution or tax for all students or charging students from elsewhere in the UK fees of up to £6,000.
Fees for students studying in Scotland are currently set at £1,820 each year but Scottish residents have their contributions paid for by the Scottish Government.
Presenting the paper to the Scottish Parliament, Russell said: ‘The challenges facing higher education are clear. The solutions, however, are complex, further complicated by the fact that Scotland does not have full power of its own finances and the £1.3bn cut to next year’s budget.’
He said ‘only one option is off the table’ – tuition fees for Scottish students.
Russell added: ‘We do support raising fees for students from the rest of the UK, to ensure Scotland continues to be the best option, not the cheap option, for learners.’
Other funding alternatives included in the Building a smarter future green paper include: the state retaining primary responsibility for funding; increasing donations and philanthropic giving; increasing investment from business; making more efficiency savings in the sector.
The Scottish government intends to introduce the new system in 2012/13.
The Scottish arm of the British Medical Association called on the Scottish Government not to ‘follow the English model of introducing a financial burden on graduates so high that many will be left with enormous student loans which they will never be able to repay’.
Dima Nassif, co-chair of the BMA’s Scottish Medical Student’s Committee, said: ‘Entry to medical school should be based on aptitude not wealth, and students from less well-off backgrounds must not be deterred from studying medicine by the prospect of huge debts.’
