Student debt up as grants slump by 25pc

STUDENT debt has soared since the SNP came to power – as opponents claim bursaries and grants have been ‘decimated’.

The value of student loans issued annually increased by 125 per cent but the sum of bursaries and grants has fallen by a quarter, new figures show.

They indicate that 10 per cent of support paid out by the Scottish Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) goes to students from elsewhere in the European Union who are studying in Scotland.

The SNP had pledged to ‘dump the debt’ before it took over as the Scottish Government in 2007. But opponents claim that a decade on, ‘the very opposite has happened’.

Figures published yesterday by SAAS show the number of students seeking support had risen from 141,000 in 2015-16 to 143,110 this year. In total, £834.8million was paid in bursa-

‘SNP promised to dump the debt’

ries and grants, fees or authorised in loans for the 2016-17 session – an increase of 3.6 per cent from 2015-16, when it was £805.8million.

The average support per student, which includes fees, was £5,830 in the 2016-17 session – up 1.9 per cent since 2015-16 when the average was £5,720.

A breakdown of figures shows that the average bursary north of the Border is £1,340, a fall of 25 per cent from 2007-08, while the average loan is now £5,300 – an increase of more than 124 per cent compared to 2007-08.

Last night Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Tavish Scott said: ‘Students across Scotland face the question of how they will support themselves while getting an education.

‘Today’s figures are troubling, particularly for students from lower-income backgrounds. The SNP were elected on a commitment to replace loans with grants and to “dump the debt”. These statistics confirm the very opposite has happened.’

He added: ‘Student debt has soared on the SNP’s watch and bursaries and grants have been decimated. Fewer students are getting them and they are receiving much less.’

The Scottish Government said almost 3,000 additional students qualified for a nonrepayable bursary or saw their funding increase as a result of the income threshold being raised from £17,000 to £19,000 last year. There was also an increase in the number of students receiving support through the nursing and midwifery bursary scheme, from 8,780 in 2015-16 to 8,915 in 2016-17.

One in ten of those receiving financial support was an EU student studying in Scotland. In total, 14,785 EU students were supported in 2016-17, which is 10.3 per cent of the SAAS total number.

Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said: ‘These figures show again that too much of the student support package is weighted towards loans rather than grants and bursaries. Rather than abolish student debt, the SNP are saddling the poorest students with even more.’

Higher Education Minister Shirley-Anne Somerville said: ‘Higher education in Scotland is based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.

‘I welcome these figures, which show this Government is investing a record amount in student support. More students are benefiting from free tuition and the maximum level of grant.

‘We are also seeing more students from the most deprived backgrounds entering higher education.’