Leader: Fees row should be spark for wider debate on universities

EDUCATION secretary Michael Russell's announcement that Scottish universities can charge students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland up to £36,000 to study in Scotland whilst Scottish undergraduates continue free of fees is but one aspect of a wider debate we must have on the future of Scottish higher education.

In advance of Mr Russell's declaration, this newspaper carried a series of articles taken from a paper, Higher Education: a critical topic, about to be published by the David Hume Institute. It contains a wide range of views on this subject, which is of great importance to Scotland in terms of our reputation as a home for academic excellence. The Hume paper intended to look not just at the issue of resources but to seek answers to the more fundamental question of what universities are for, resulting in a variety of suggestions ranging from underpinning the economy to advancing the democratic intellect, depending on the interest of the authors.

However, it is inevitable that funding will be crucial. In that respect, the call yesterday by student leaders that the already better-off universities should not be allowed to get richer on the back of an ability to charge up to 9,000 a year brings us back to harsh financial reality with a thump. Whist there is some logic in the students' case, and Mr Russell has hinted he may find a way to redistribute funds to avoid universities exploiting the ability to charge the maximum, it is already a fact that some higher education institutions have more resources than others.

But there is another way of looking at this. If universities that charged the maximum were forced to use a significant proportion of the funds raised to provide bursaries for academically well-qualified students from less well-off backgrounds, that might provide an elegant, not to say egalitarian and socially just, way of exploiting the opportunities the new fee regime presents. Beyond that, it must also be the case that the charging of such a large sum will stimulate further debate on whether Scotland should retain the four-year degree.

Many able students with A-levels can already go into second year at a Scottish university, and institutions must now consider whether formally to offer students from the rest of the UK a three-year degree option, reducing the cost to the equivalent of the highest fees south of the Border. Although there is not the same incentive in terms of fees for Scottish students, there is equally an argument for those with good Advanced Highers - seen as academically more challenging than A-levels - to go straight into what is now second year at university, thereby saving the not inconsiderable cost of a year's accommodation and living expenses.

The announcement on fees may yet spark a more fundamental, and welcome, reconsideration of the structure and purpose of higher education in Scotland.