James M Fraser: Take a year out and we might just keep it free

ENGLISH and Scottish university systems were very different from each other in the 19th century. By the mid-1960s, they had become much more similar, not least in student support through both fees and maintenance. But a mere three decades later, the systems began to diverge: with the post-Dearing introduction in 1998, in England only, of a student contribution to tuition fees; with the 2006 introduction of the so-called "top-up fees" in England; with the abolition in 2008 of the graduate endowment contribution in Scotland; and then with the current UK government's plans for English universities. From 2012, the two systems (as plans presently stand) will, indeed, be very different from each other. The consequence of the devolution settlement is, therefore, that the university systems of the UK nations have drifted apart.

This has created considerable difficulties in a system which, for some 30 to 40 years, had presented a largely undifferentiated financial face to all students in the separate parts of the UK. The consequences for both Scottish and English universities will almost certainly be profound, if hard to predict. For Scottish universities, the rocks may not melt in the sun - but the tectonic plates will certainly shift.

Replicating in Scotland the decision by the UK government to move the burden of funding teaching in the English universities from the state to the student (or the graduate) would be unacceptable to most of the Scottish political establishment, certainly to four of the five main political parties. This threatens to produce a funding gap between Scottish and English universities estimated at 200 million on an English fee level of 7,500 per annum. This gap, if unabridged, will threaten the competitive position of Scottish universities, open them to a loss of their best staff and hazard their successes in research and in attracting high-quality students. The options for meeting the shortfall are public funding, income diversification and/or the imposition of some form of payment on students or on future graduates. In the face of competing demands for limited public funds, there is a real danger that the Scottish Government will be unable to cover the deficit from public funds and their political distaste for charging either the student or the graduate will mean universities will be left without any means of closing it.

The recognition that university education is a public good and not simply something which is beneficial for the individual recipient is a laudable and a socially cohesive viewpoint. The preservation of the Robbins principle, that ability alone should be the criteria for entry to a university education and that wealth or the lack of it should be no bar, is also one which resonates with the traditional value placed by Scots on university education. It is not true that Scottish university education was always free (although, first of all through the Carnegie Trust and then through government efforts, it gradually became so, starting from about 1901 onwards). Certainly in the period of mass higher education, a free university education has been and is rightly regarded by the population as something of great value and worthy of preservation. The question is how a Scottish government can adequately fund Scottish universities without imposing fees on the student, a charge on graduates or intolerable burdens on the budgets of the other government services.Another issue facing the Scottish system (and one for which there is no easy fix) relates to incoming EU students from outside the UK. Until 2006, such students faced a level playing field between Scotland and England. Since 2006, they have paid a tuition fee of over 3,000 per year to study in England; but, de facto, certainly since 2008, a zero tuition fee to study in Scotland. If one compares the first- year enrolment of such students between 2005-6 and 2008-9, the numbers in England went up from 33,700 to 37,200, a rise of just over 9 per cent; but the numbers in Scotland in the same time period went up from 4,700 to 6,400, a rise of 27 per cent. On this evidence, geographically mobile EU students appear to be sensitive to price, a wholly unsurprising finding.

It does not take much imagination to see that, if, post-2012, Scottish tuition fees remain effectively zero and English tuition fees rise as planned to up to 9,000 per year, we are likely to see still more Scottish university places filled from elsewhere in the EU: all at the expense of the Scottish Government. This would be (unintended) altruism on a grand scale.

The green paper on Scottish higher education, published before the election, is wide-ranging both in its suggestions as to diversification of income and in hints at ways of reducing the cost of delivery. Universities Scotland supports its contention that universities need to be more flexible in their delivery models than they have been in the past and that the system should recognise that between the start of secondary education and degree year four there may very well be, for many students, a redundant year.

Consider the idea that the typical Scots graduate might take one year less than at the present time to make the progress from being a five-year-old at the start of compulsory education to becoming an honours university graduate.

That would offer up savings, both in student support costs and in the costs of educational delivery. At present, the typical (full-time) route takes seven years in primary school, six years in secondary school and four years in university - ie, 19 years in all. But how would one implement such a change - ie, shorten the typical journey time from primary school to the acquisition of a university degree. Judging by the statistics of the past decades, it is not easy to persuade more S5 Scots with good grades to go straight to university rather than doing S6, nor to persuade more who have Advanced Highers or A-levels to apply to the second year of a university degree. Nor is it always easy to persuade the more established Scottish universities to accept college HNC graduates straight into 2nd year or HND graduates straight into 3rd year.

Perhaps the Scottish Government might guarantee free education for Scots for a period of 18 years, but expect a graduate contribution from those who take more than 18 years (or its equivalent in periods of part-time study) to gain a degree? This might persuade more Scots to transfer into higher education at the end of S5 or to move from S6 directly into the second year of a university degree. To the extent that it did not, it would raise revenue for universities: ie, if a combination of savings and of the graduate contributions was channelled into universities, that would provide some (modest) closing of the funding gap. This would, of course, be discriminatory - ie, it rewards those who accelerate their studies and penalises those who do not - but not all discrimination is wrong or indefensible. It would preserve the principle that state education is free right through to university graduation (for undergraduates), but only totally free for those who take the minimum time to achieve this - they exit as graduates who bear no debts to government, at least not in respect of tuition costs. For the rest, they might exit with an obligation that they will, over some years, make a graduate contribution of, say, about 6,000 (roughly the annual tuition cost of the typical Scottish undergraduate).

It may be possible, however, to preserve the government's commitment to a free university education and reduce their support still further by offering 17 rather than 18 years' support and asking the student to make a contribution to the 18th year. The 18th year for many students would be the final honours year. Arguably, the contribution of honours to the graduate pay advantage suggests some equity in securing the contribution for the final year. This proposal allows the Scottish Government to preserve the Robbins principle, to continue to underline the public good of higher education, but deliver itself from the total burden of funding to honours.

For those students, however, who opt for the current full-time paradigm of a three- or four-year university education, the elimination of the one redundant year between P1 and final honours and the possibility of a contribution to the final year offers the commitment to a free university education, which is a Scottish desideratum, but enables some element of contribution to be collected from the graduate beneficiary.

• James M Fraser is principal of the University of the Highlands and Islands. The paper Higher Education in Scotland: a critical topic will be published by the David Hume Institute later this month. For more information, go to www.davidhumeinstitute.com.SPARE PAGE