Wallace unveils plans to protect Scottish students
Scotland’s Lifelong Learning Minister Jim Wallace has unveiled a package of measures, which he says will protect Scottish students when variable fees are introduced in England.
Among the measures he announced is a proposal to increase the level of fee paid by English students wishing to study in Scotland, aimed to prevent an influx of students from across the borders.
There has been a 12 per cent increase in applications from English students wishing to study in Scotland, a sign Mr Wallace said of the threat posed to Scottish students.
So, whilst charging variable fees has been ruled out by the Executive, flat rate fees will be increased by between £500-700 to take the total yearly fee to £1,700-£1,900.
World renowned Scottish universities like Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews are still likely to remain very attractive to English students as institutes of comparative reputation in England are likely to charge the full £3,000 a year.
Those Scots wishing to study in England will receive loans of up to £3,000 a year to pay the cost of variable fees.
The Executive is also pledged to assess the case for having a separate higher rate fee for medical students from outside Scotland, as experts have recently indicated that up to half the medical students in Scotland come from elsewhere and this leads to difficulties in retaining sufficient numbers of medial graduates in Scotland.
Mr Wallace told the Parliament that: “We are very conscious that providing support for both fees and living costs in the form of a student loan would mean that some Scots studying in England would risk building up high levels of debt.
“To reduce this we will also be greatly improving the bursaries available for this group, replacing up to £2,000 of the student loan for living costs with a means-tested bursary.”
Regarding the decision to change the arrangements for UK students, he said: “Of course, this is a difficult issue. Tough choices have had to be made and I can assure Members that the decisions taken have not been arrived at lightly. In our deliberations I have never lost sight of the fact that my first responsibility is to protect the interests of Scottish-domiciled students.
“My Cabinet colleagues and I have discounted the option of quotas in our universities based on domicile – and I am not aware of any serious advocates of that approach. The obvious and sensible alternative therefore is to bring the cost of study for non-Scottish UK students closer to what they will be charged elsewhere.
“We will be guided by certain clear principles. For example, there is no desire to make four-year courses in Scotland more expensive in terms of overall fee cost than three-year courses in England. We will take that into account in setting the level of fee. We have no desire to make Scottish universities more expensive than their English counterparts in terms of overall cost. The new fee should, however, be sufficiently high to influence demand.”
If the Higher Education Bill is finally passed by both Houses, then UK universities will be able to charge fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006. However the current arrangement of up front fees will be scrapped, and the fees will begin to be repaid when the graduate earns £15,000 or above. Scotland though will not introduce the fees in its universities.
Scottish students wishing to go to English universities though would have to pay these fees in advance.
