Have your say: Scottish universities need to start charging tuition fees

The SNP’s flagship policy of free tuition for university students is many things, but it is definitely not free.

The costs of around £900 million a year are met by the Scottish Government or, in other words, by taxpayers.

Universities generally did not complain about the model, but the funding in recent years has not kept pace with inflation, with institutions now receiving direct support of around £7,610 for each Scottish student - around 19 per cent less in real terms than in 2013/14.

This is about £2,020 lower than the resources available for an English university undergraduate. The real-terms cuts have meant institutions have increasingly had to turn to the fees of international students, and other income generating measures, to balance the books.

These growing pressures are coming to a head this year as a collapse in the numbers of international students on postgraduate courses has coincided with an actual cut in funding from the Scottish Government, after years of below-inflation rises.

This is leading to a renewed debate about the merits and future of “free tuition” for undergraduates from Scotland.

Sir Paul Grice, the principal of Queen Margaret University and a vice convener of Universities Scotland, has been among the voices calling for some kind of “compromise” that is both “affordable” and “fair”.

In terms of fairness, one of the problems with changing the system, as the SNP points out, is that it would jeopardise the principle that education should be based on the ability to learn, not on the ability to pay.

Means testing has been put forward as an option, but there will always be those who fall on the wrong side of the line and are priced out of higher education because they do not have the money. Means testing can also be complicated and expensive to run.

Another primary advantage of the free tuition policy is that it has meant Scottish students graduate with far lower levels of debt than in many other nations. For Scots, the average debt last year was £15,430, compared to £44,940 in England, where fees are charged at up to £9,250 a year.

Few advocate a move to England’s model, where many universities are battling for survival, despite being able to charge fees. As things stand, all the main Scottish political parties continue to back free tuition, but there have been indications that could change.

Labour’s finance spokesman Michael Marra has been reported as saying the party would need to “find a new formula” for university funding, before pointing to “models across Europe”, and to “things that we had previously, whether it be graduate taxes, whether it be endowments”. A new funding mechanism would be welcomed by many senior figures in the higher education sector, if it offers a sustainable future for organisations that are under real pressure.

It would also end a “cap” on the number of Scottish undergraduate students who can attend the nation’s universities, with the limit created by the amount of funding available.

Perhaps most importantly, it would ease pressure on the rest of the public sector if the Government was able to free up hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

But these benefits would have to weighed against the potential backlash from students and their families if they believe they are being plunged into huge new debts, or other burdensome financial commitments, amid an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.