Euan McColm: Students worse off with free tuition

Graduating students from University of Edinburgh.

Picture: Neil Hanna — Graduating students from University of Edinburgh. Picture: Neil Hanna

IN A couple of weeks, the corridors and bars of Scotland’s universities will throng with freshers, setting out on academic courses that will shape the rest of their lives.

And, if they’re lucky enough to live in Scotland, the cost of their tuition fees will be picked up by the taxpayer.

Students living across the EU also benefit from this policy. Though, controversially, those who live in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are required to pay tuition fees should they find a place at a Scottish uni.

The Scottish Government, understandably, makes quite the song and dance about Scots students being spared the burden of tuition fees. It’s a defining policy for the SNP.

A few days before he stepped down as First Minister last year, Alex Salmond posed in the grounds of Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University beside a large boulder on to which was inscribed a quotation from one of his speeches. It read “The rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scottish students”.

This monument to government policy, paid for with public money, stands there still; a reminder of Salmond’s ego and the disquieting cosiness that exists between the Scottish Government and some higher education establishments.

Critics of the free tuition fees policy argue that it disproportionately benefits middle-class students. Those from wealthier backgrounds are more likely to attend university and there is no evidence to suggest that making tuition free has widened the student population to take in substantially more young people who might come from poorer homes.

But, as a principle, it’s unbeatable: this is Scotland and all our young people deserve the very best.

All, however, is not quite as it seems with the free tuition fees policy. And there’s real disquiet among some senior figures in our finest higher education establishments.

The policy, you see, actually discriminates against some Scots, forcing universities to reject them, even if they have the necessary qualifications and skills for their chosen courses.

The devil, as ever, is in the detail.

Tuition fees for Scottish and EU students are paid for each year by the Scottish Funding Council. Since the academic year 2012/13, the number of full-time places supported by the SFC has remained steady at around 124,000.

This figure represents a limit on the number of Scottish and EU students that universities and other higher education institutions – Glasgow School of Art or the Royal Conservatoire, for example – are allowed to accept. After this cap is reached, unis must give the remaining places to students from the rest of the UK and non-EU nations.

Now, obviously, the money for all this free tuition has to come from somewhere, and accepting students who are obliged to pay is one way of bearing the burden. And, with around 230,000 students in higher education in Scotland, that’s a lot of people paying up.

But the problem, identified by more than one senior figure in Scottish higher education is that the policy begins to work against students who live in Scotland. The principle of free tuition for Scottish students can, for some, mean no university place is available.

What happens is this. A Scottish university sifts though its applications, giving priority to students living here. They do this because they want those they educate to remain living here afterwards. They want to retain these skills in Scotland.

Of course, that initial sift will include outstanding candidates from elsewhere but, by and large, Scottish students are at an advantage.

When the cap on available free places is reached, then there is no option for the institution in question but to begin looking elsewhere.