Readers' Letters: 'Free education' comes at a large cost to the nation

Are enough of Scotland's young people able to access free university places, asks reader (Picture: Adobe)

With Labour announcing an increase in tuition fees for higher education, SNP politicians are falling over themselves to comment on our “free education”. John Swinney states that “education must be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay” and says that only the SNP will protect free education.

I’m sure I’m not alone in knowing the phrase “if it looks too good to be true, it usually is”, and it certainly is in this case. What the First Minister and all his politicians fail to tell you is that there are fewer and fewer spaces available for students based in Scotland.

In 2018/19, 65 per cent of places were taken up at Scottish higher education establishments by those living permanently in Scotland. By 2022/23 this had dropped to 59 per cent. You don’t need to look far to see why. In 2024/25 those from overseas had to pay £37,500 to study here. If you live elsewhere in the UK, the fee was £9,250 and if you are a Scottish resident, the fee which is paid by the Scottish Government amounted to £1,820. That latter fee has not risen in cash terms since 2009.

Universities are no different to any other business. They are selling a service and have to fund their work and pay for staff and facilities. With rising costs, they will look to achieve their greatest revenue possible and if that is by denying Scottish students access to their establishments, that is what they will do – they need to balance the books.

Those who don’t receive a Scottish university place will have to move to England if they want to study, there they will need to get a student loan to pay for living costs and student fees. “Free education” comes at a cost to those Scottish students who are forced to go elsewhere and take out a loan, and of course, once they’ve moved away they are less likely to return to live and work here. Future professionals such as vets, doctors, nurses and teachers all leaving to get the qualification to improve our lives not coming back.

It’s all smoke and mirrors with the SNP. That free education myth comes at quite a price.

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

Not so free

As university fees rise in England by 3 per cent for the first time since 2017, John Swinney pops up in a video gleefully reminding us that no one pays university fees in Scotland. Though, of course, under the SNP, all taxpayers are, in fact, paying university fees for every Scottish student, irrespective of parental ability to pay. So for example, a childless person in Dundee earning £30,000 is subsidising someone from Edinburgh earning £100,000 plus who has a student at the first-rate University of St Andrews, perhaps having previously paid school fees for them at one of the city's excellent independent schools.

Is this right? In an ideal world every public service would be free, from buses to council car parks to garden waste collection and, yes, to university tuition. But we don't live in an ideal world. University fees should undoubtedly be subsidised by the state, ensuring access for all, using means testing, and according to ability to pay – unlike now in Scotland, where the less well-off subsidise the better-off.

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Dump debt

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to be praised for trying to limit yearly government spending to government income. This has been the dream of governments for a long time, but the reality is that in 1997 the National Debt – the sum of all government yearly overspends to date – was £350 billion. By 2010 it had become £902bn, and today it has reached a staggering £2,800 billion, as government has borrowed every year to finance continual overspending.

This huge sum is clearly unrepayable, and indeed, does not have to be repaid, because the bulk of it is magic money created by the banking system, but the banks demand interest on this magic money and for 20023 / 20024 that was £102bn.

If Chancellor Reeves simply told the banks that their magic money game was over, that £102 billion would plug a few black holes, with a bit left over.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross

Brexit harm

After any Budget, it often takes a number of days before the dust settles and the full implications become clear. The devil, as they say, is always in the detail.

The revelation from the economic secretary to the Treasury, Tulip Siddiq, that 60 per cent of the impact of Brexit is yet to materialise is just one of these, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasting that the economy will shrink in the long run due to the UK leaving the EU.

It also noted that Britain’s imports and exports will end up 15 per cent lower than they would be had the UK stayed in the EU.

Back in 2022, the Centre for European Reform compared the UK to similar economies and assessed that Brexit meant a loss of tax revenues of £40 billion. This week the Chancellor increased tax by £40bn, the biggest rise in decades, impacting businesses already in many cases deeply affected by Brexit.

Earlier this year, a report – commissioned by the Labour mayor of London and using Treasury analysis – concluded that the UK was already £140bn worse off due to Brexit and would be £311bn worse off over the next decade. On top of that, the exit bill to leave the European Union is still costing taxpayers. The UK has paid £24bn to leave, so far, with billions more still to pay to settle continuing obligations.

Brexit, it appears, is an issue that dare not speak its name, and yet the impact on our public finances of this profound act of economic self-harm significantly outweighs any other aspects of the Budget.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh

Ferry link

Ireland is expanding its ferry service to France from two to five return sailings per week and has ten ferry routes connecting it to France, UK, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. Why doesn’t Scotland have any ferries to Europe? We used to have regular sailings to Norway and the Netherlands. Reinstating a ferry service would alleviate the Brexit hammer blow dealt to Scottish exports, and revitalise tourism.

It’s because our ports, once owned by the Burghs, were sold off to offshore private equity funds under the Tories. These guys aren’t interested in investing in Scotland’s underdeveloped Victorian-era ports to attract international shipping. And the two so-called freeports, at the Firth of Forth and Inverness and Cromarty Firth, are additional roadblocks erected by Westminster with Holyrood’s connivance to thwart Scotland’s development and steal its resources.

And London is loathe to facilitate links between its Scottish “colony” and the continent, preferring to control, limit and make Scottish exports more expensive via English ports.

When an EU member, the UK withheld financial support for international shipping despite the EU programme, Motorway of the Sea, that would have subsidised it. More recently, plans to link Rosyth and Dunkirk were abandoned because Westminster wouldn’t provide any money.

It’s outrageous that Scotland, surrounded by seas, has no maritime strategy, just as it’s outrageous that the UK is openly stealing our renewable energy resources and leaving Scots in the cold. The Scottish administration – it isn’t a government – needs to grow a spine and stand up for Scotland. It could start by enacting the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law, which would give the Scottish people the political rights to exercise their sovereignty and the power to end the Union.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh

No news

You don’t mend something which is not broken and that was very evident on Monday when STV News, inadvertently, became newsworthy of itself. For inexplicable reasons, the station has moved to single newsreader presentation.

Viewers loved the original format, and the chemistry between Kelly-Ann Woodland and John MacKay has been welcomed into our living rooms for years.

The patronising remark that “it simplifies the bulletin” has been attributed to Head of News Linda Grimes Douglas, but she has not elaborated on the comment. Other journalists there are said to be unhappy. West of Scotland news already dominates the bulletin, as football fans are well aware, to an alarming degree; and the fact Edinburgh will no longer have a live news studio is both a concern and bewildering given the proximity of Holyrood.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Bad start

For those of us who have never voted Conservative and never will, Kemi Badenoch has made an auspicious start as party leader by delivering, within 48 hours, a stunning hat trick of gaffes.

She demeaned Rachel Reeves's achievement in becoming the first female chancellor, who did something that few politicians deign to do, namely admit that she was wrong in her assessment of the financial inheritance from the previous government. For her second trick, Kemi assessed that all the furore over the notorious Partygate was “overblown”, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps, her most astounding gaffe was her claim that Boris Johnson was an outstanding Prime Minister, and not the failure he certainly was, especially from the damning perspective of Scotland, whose people he never managed to seduce.

While congratulating her for becoming the first Black Briton to become leader of her Party, I sincerely hope Kemi Badenoch is never granted the achievement of a pioneering premiership.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

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