14,000 denied place at uni amid SNP cap on student numbers
MORE than 14,000 young Scots missed out on a place at university last year amid concern over the SNP’s controversial cap on student numbers.
University admissions service Ucas said 14,200 who applied had failed to win a place in 2019 – the equivalent of nearly three out of ten applicants.
Although this was down on the 14,575 who missed out the year before, the total is still around 60 per cent higher than before the SNP introduced ‘free’ university tuition.
The flagship policy is only affordable because the Scottish Government imposes a cap on the number of places for Scottish and EU students.
A damning 2016 Audit Scotland report found the cap had not kept pace with the demand for places, leading to the large increase in the number of ‘unplaced’ Scots since the SNP took power in 2007.
It emerged a year ago that school-leavers with as many as eight A-grades in their Highers had been rejected from Scotland’s top universities in favour of English and non-EU students who pay tuition fees. Concerns were also raised that a drive to ‘widen access’ by admitting more youngsters from deprived backgrounds would lead to middle-class pupils with higher grades losing out.
For the first time, all Scotland’s ancient universities published two sets of required grades, depending on the background of the applicant, with lower grades required for those who lived in a deprived area or attended a lowattaining school. Melvyn Roffe, the principal of George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, warned there was already a ‘brain drain’ to England of talented Scottish youngsters who could not get a place.
But Professor Sally Mapstone, the University of St Andrews principal, said the SNP’s cap on Scottish places was responsible rather than lowering entry grades for the poor.
The University of Edinburgh’s website now warns potential applicants that ‘the Scottish Government places strict limits on the number of “Scotland and EU” students that universities can admit’.
This means that Scottish universities ‘are limited in the number of offers they can make’.
It adds that there are ‘no Scottish Government limits’ on the number of fee-paying overseas or English students admitted. Liz Smith, the Scottish Tories’ education spokesman, warned ‘nothing will address this situation’ until the SNP reformed higher education funding.
She added: ‘The price of “free tuition” is the discriminatory system which sees Scots-domiciled and EU students treated differently from RUK and international students and the harmful “cap” which limits places for Scots and which, as a result, squeezes out many very well qualified school-leavers.
‘This is not only grossly unfair but harmful to Scotland’s job market.’
Ucas said there were 49,925 applicants from Scotland in 2019 for a university place, nearly all of which were to institutions north of the Border. Of these, 35,725 applications were accepted, a fall of 1,380 compared to the previous year.
This means 14,200 applicants missed out on a place.
The total is far higher than the 8,860 unplaced applicants in 2007, the year before the SNP introduced ‘free’ university tuition and the cap.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We are committed to maintaining free university education for students from all backgrounds. We have record numbers of students from the most deprived areas for the fourth year in a row.
‘Our commitment to free tuition means that, unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt of up to £27,000 and average student loan debt is the lowest in the UK.
A Universities Scotland spokesman said: ‘Inevitably with a capped system there are some who miss out but with the sector’s commitment to lifelong learning there are many other opportunities to enter higher education at a later date.’
‘Limited in the number of offers’