Student anger as £36,000 degree comes to St Andrews

It has revealed it will charge £9,000 a year for its four-year courses, placing it alongside Edinburgh in offering the UK’s most expensive degree courses.

Scottish students and those from elsewhere in the EU will continue to be exempt from tuition fees.

St Andrews also announced an overhaul of its bursary system, including a new “Fife Dux” scholarship to improve links with schools in Fife.

Student leaders said the fees announcement sent out the “wrong message” about a university they said already struggled to attract undergraduates from state schools and deprived areas due to its elite reputation. It is the university where Prince William met Kate Middleton.

The announcement follows a decision by the Scottish Government to allow universities to charge up to £9,000 a year in tuition for English, Welsh and Northern Irish students after the Westminster government removed a fee cap for students south of the Border.

St Andrews joins Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Heriot-Watt in setting fees at £9,000, although the latter two institutions will offer undergraduates a one-year discount, meaning no student there will pay more than £27,000. That brings them into line with the cost of the usual three-year degree elsewhere in the UK

Earlier this week, Glasgow Caledonian University said it would charge its students £7,000 a year up to a maximum of £21,000.

St Andrews said it could not afford not to charge £9,000, as it currently cost the university £11,772 a year to teach an undergraduate.

St Andrews’ principal and vice-chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, said: “We are not a wealthy institution. In spite of our age and our international standing, our endowment is remarkably small. Indeed, the primary purpose of our 600th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign is to build a large and lasting endowment to support our students and staff. Quite simply, we cannot afford not to charge £9,000 per annum.”

But Patrick O’Hare, president of the university’s student association, said: “This unprecedented hike is precisely the wrong message to be sending out when St Andrews already struggles to attract students from state schools and especially those from the most deprived areas.

“We note with encouragement the provisions made for bursaries, but do not believe that these go far enough.

“Neither the Scottish nor Westminster governments should escape their share of the blame. Students who return to campus and find that such unpopular decisions have been taken in their absence should rightly feel outraged and I would not be surprised to see a winter of student discontent comparable to last year’s protests.”

The university said bursary meant no student from the rest of the UK whose family’s household income was less than £42,600 would face upfront costs.

There will also be a Fife Dux scholarship of £7,500 a year in cash for successful applicants with the best aggregate results in any of Fife’s secondary schools.

But Robin Parker, president of National Union of Students in Scotland, said: “These fees decisions are becoming a farcical battle to see who can get away with charging the highest fee, and who can shamelessly cash in on students the most.”