Scottish Universities would favour quality over quantity under fee system - Russell

Scottish Education Secretary Michael Russell has insisted university principals will take "quality over money" if fees are brought in for students from the rest of the UK.

The SNP Government wants to give universities the power to charge fees of up to 9,000 each year, while maintaining free education for students based in Scotland.

The plans for legislation followed a vote by MPs to increase fees south of the border earlier this year.

Mr Russell defended his plan, telling BBC Radio Scotland's Call Kaye programme that he was "driven" to take this course of action because of events in Westminster.

He was asked whether principals may be able to boost budgets by picking fee-paying students from other parts of the UK.

Mr Russell said: "Of course it will make a difference because they will get more from the English student."

But he said principals know that to take the money rather than basing applications on quality would be damaging in the long term.

"They will take quality over money," he added.

"But look, we are where we are. I would much rather we weren't driven down this road.

"Given the nature of the financing of the Scottish Government, the nature of the financing of higher education, we have to do this.

"I hope this is temporary because I hope that independence will lead to a better situation on this.

"The sooner after the referendum we move to independence, the sooner we can resolve this in the way that I would like to do."

He continued: "Our bigger neighbour has come up with a solution on higher education that's over-influencing us."

Mr Russell announced his plan at Holyrood on Wednesday last week.

He said the decision could see fees range from 1,800 to 9,000 a year, with a possible average of 6,375, which was a figure used by Universities Scotland's technical working group during research on the subject.

Mr Russell said he expected the average fee in Scotland to be lower than that in England, and he offered reassurance that universities would still be able to offer non-fee paying Scottish students the same number of places next year as they did this year.

Consultation on the legislation will run until September 2, with the hope it will be approved by MSPs by November.

The SNP administration is pursuing the possibility of introducing a management fee for European Union (EU) students, who under current regulations are required to be treated in the same way as Scottish students. Mr Russell has used the Irish example of imposing a "service charge".