Funding gap between English and Scottish universities set to grow to £260m

INCOME from tuition fees could see England’s universities open up a £260m “funding gap” with their Scottish competitors by 2014, it has been warned.

• English universities charging an average of over £8,000 a year

• Funding gap set to grow to £263m by 2014-15

A report prepared for the Scottish Parliament’s education committee said the decision by most English universities to charge close to the £9,000 a year maximum meant the difference in higher education budgets on opposite sides of the border is likely to be much greater than previously thought.

It had been estimated that Scottish institutions would face a funding gap of £155m with their English rivals.

But a briefing paper prepared for MSPs suggests the gap could grow to £263m by 2014/15 due to the decision by the majority of English institutions to charge close to the £9,000 maximum.

The report notes that the average fee at English universities has been confirmed at £8,385 for 2012/13 and is likely to rise to £8,507 in 2013/14.

The report goes on: “If these figures were used, it is highly likely that that the overall funding gap would be greater than the £155 million funding gap initially estimated (for example the technical working group estimated that with an average English fee of £8000 which is index-linked, the funding gap could be equal to £263 million by 2014-15).”

However, it warns the exact size of the funding gap still depends of “multiple variables”, including student numbers in England and Scotland and the size of the teaching grant universities receive.

Scottish Tory education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: “At a time when the overall competence of the Scottish Government has been seriously undermined, yet more questions have arisen about the size of the funding gap and the full cost of higher education.

“The Scottish Government needs to tell us exactly what the arithmetic is and how it will find the extra funds.”

A spokesman for Universities Scotland said: “When figures were first attached to the potential size of a funding gap between universities in Scotland and England in early 2011, it was only possible to make estimates based on a range of variables yet to play out.

“A number of these variables have not yet reached steady-state on either side of the border, therefore in our view it would be premature to re-open a debate on the size of the funding gap.

“We have made it clear that given the present budgetary circumstances, the public funding settlement given to universities for the period up until 2015 is a good deal and goes as far as possible to closing the funding gap when combined with income from rest-of-UK fees and universities’ own efficiency savings.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government is maintaining free access to university for Scots based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay and we have protected places for Scottish students, with an increased number starting university this year.

“These claims are based on out of date figures and does not reflect the investment put into Scottish universities in the most recent spending reviews. Funding arrangements for EU students, which will include students from the rest of the UK post Independence, are currently being considered and at this point predictions of what those arrangements might be or and what number of students from the rest of the UK might apply to Scottish universities, are purely speculative.”