Scottish college students may not have 'same learning experience' as previous generations amid funding crisis

College students across Scotland may not have the ‘same learning experience’ as previous generations amid escalating financial pressures, Scotland’s public spending watchdog has warned. 

Audit Scotland said the economic challenges facing the sector had increased over the past year, with more colleges reporting deficits in the latest accounts at a time when Scottish Government funding had fallen by 17 per cent in real terms since 2021/22.

With hundreds of staff also leaving colleges through voluntary severance over the past year, the watchdog said that colleges “may not be able to do everything that they have done in the past,” a scenario that would “Impact on the learning they provide.”

Fife College is among those instituations to have lost significant staff numbers via voluntary redundancies. Picture: Scott Louden

In a briefing scrutinising the sector, Audit Scotland said that while colleges were taking steps to identify efficiencies, and working with the Scottish Funding Council to ensure that they remain sustainable, there was a need for “more clarity” from Scottish ministers on which aspects of their role to prioritise.

The newly published report also said that despite Audit Scotland cautioning last year that the challenges facing colleges could not be “avoided” or “postponed,” reform has yet to be implemented. The consequence of that, it said, was “continuing uncertainty,” which made it “more difficult for colleges to plan effectively.”

The briefing pointed out that real-terms funding for the sector had tapered off from £675.7m in 2021/22 to £643m in 2024/25, with specific resource funds - such as a £26m uplift to support strategic change and a £10m flexible workforce development fund - also withdrawn from the government’s budget. Audit Scotland said that across all 20 colleges, eight reported a deficit in 2021/22; of the 14 colleges where it had figures for 2022/23, 11 reported a deficit.

Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said the college sector faced ‘huge challenges’.

It also pointed to the significant numbers of staff that left colleges in 2022/23 via voluntary severances, with the sector predicting further reductions in staff numbers in the coming years. Earlier this month, The Scotsman revealed how colleges across Scotland racked up a bill of more than £37m after agreeing voluntary exit packages for close to 1,700 staff in the past five years.

Nearly £14m was spent on the departures of 534 staff in 2022/23 alone. The institutions with the highest number of voluntary redundancies over the past five years were Edinburgh College with 179, New College Lanarkshire with 171, followed by Fife College’s 148.

Shona Struthers, CEO of Colleges Scotland, said college leaders were under “enormous pressure” to keep their organisations solvent while performing successfully, adding that colleges were public bodies that could “play a bigger part” in helping the government eradicate child poverty.

Audit Scotland has called on the Scottish Government to set out the priorities that colleges are expected to deliver before it issues its letter of guidance to the Scottish Funding Council for 2025/26, and stressed the need for “early engagement” with colleges and the council. 

Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said: “The college sector is facing huge challenges. But to plan effectively for the future, colleges need a much stronger steer from the Scottish Government on what parts of their role to prioritise.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government is already taking forward work to improve the current funding model, including delivering greater flexibility through the work of the colleges tripartite group.

“As outlined in the Programme for Government, we have also committed to introducing a Bill to deliver the simplification of the funding body landscape for universities, colleges, apprenticeships and student support. We are currently consulting on proposals to deliver this, with the consultation due to close this week.”