UNIVERSITY is still “unaffordable” for many people in Scotland – even though tuition fees are covered by the Scottish Government.
Following the furore surrounding the suggestion by the principal of Edinburgh University that wealthier families should pay their offspring’s tuition fees, the National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland said education was a “human right and should be free for everyone”.
“We are lucky that this is the case in Scotland, however, this does not mean our education system is equally accessible to all,” said Bernie Savage of the NUS. “For many, university is still unaffordable.”
He told the Sunday National that student rents had increased by 34% between 2018 and 2021 but during the same period, the student financial package had only increased by 4.5%.
“We recently won a £900 uplift in loans for undergraduate students in higher education, but even this is only a 15% increase from 2018 and students who cannot rely on family financial support are struggling to survive at university,” said Savage.
Recent research by the union found that 37% of students have considered leaving their course because of financial difficulties.
“This unaffordability is compounded for those who have a higher cost of living, particularly disabled students and students with caring responsibilities,” Savage said.
“To support these students, we need to both ensure that our student support package meets the Real Living Wage, as well as control rents in purpose-built student accommodation. Furthermore, if we want a truly accessible education system, we must abolish fees for international and postgraduate students, so that everyone who seeks out an education can take it as far as they desire.”
The maximum financial package for this academic year is £8100 – a combination of a £2000 bursary and a £6100 loan. As of 2023/24, this will be going up to a maximum of £9000 due to a £900 increase in loans. The minimum will be £6000.
The rise fulfils a key campaign ask of NUS Scotland’s Fighting for Student campaign, which called for a cost of living increase in student support. The campaign saw hundreds of students gather outside the Scottish Parliament and more than 2000 campaign emails sent to MSPs calling for action on student poverty.
Last week, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, whose basic salary started at £342,000 when he took the job in 2018, said making wealthier families in Scotland pay tuition fees was “worthy of calm consideration” as current government funding was inadequate and meant feepayers from rUK and overseas were subsidising the system.
He denied accusations that the university was blocking applications from Scottish domiciled students in favour of feepayers, saying the notion was “unfounded”.
“The number of Scottish students we can accept is capped by the Scottish Government, an inescapable consequence of their policy to pay tuition fees for this group,” he said.
However, Mary Senior, Scotland official of the University and College Union (UCU) said the fact that he had stated publicly that feepayers were subsidising the system was “deeply worrying” and more progressive taxation would be a fairer solution to deliver public services, as making wealthier families pay fees was not the answer.
Senior welcomed the renewed commitment to maintaining free higher education that First Minister Humza Yousaf made in response to Mathieson last week but said this had to be backed up by funding.
“What’s been worrying is that we’ve actually seen the reverse with £46m being pulled from the higher education budget,” she said.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Since 2012/13, we have invested over £1 billion per year in Scotland’s universities, to ensure that our universities continue to deliver a high standard of education for all students.
“Since 2006-07, the number of Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree entrants has increased by over 31%. Latest UCAS data shows Scottish domiciled acceptances to Scottish providers, are up 5% between 2019 and 2022 – now up to 35,690.”
