‘Make graduates pay back fee’

ALL Scottish university graduates should pay a financial contribution when they finish their studies, according to a think-tank.

Reform Scotland also said students from EU countries should pay fees next year as the ‘survival’ of the higher education sector is at risk from the coronavirus crisis.

The graduate endowment fee was abolished in 2007 and Scottish students now have their undergraduate tuition fees paid by the Scottish Government. But students from the rest of the UK and outside the EU still have to pay fees.

A Reform Scotland paper said it is ‘fair’ that graduates should pay back part of the cost of their tuition once they are earning the average Scottish salary. Chris Deerin, the think-tank’s director, said: ‘Over half of our universities were already in deficit before coronavirus and increasingly reliant on fee-paying students from the rest of the UK and the rest of the world to stay afloat.

‘We would all like to live in a world where ‘‘free’’ university education works for the universities, the students and the taxpayer. But it’s time to admit that it doesn’t.’

He said demand on the public purse ‘is only going to rise’, and politicians should have ‘the courage and the foresight to challenge some old shibboleths in order to prepare Scotland for the challenges ahead’.

Mr Deerin added: ‘Graduates should pay back a proportion of their tuition fee once they start earning the average Scottish salary. This is fair because graduates on average earn more money throughout their lives than non-graduates, and it is also reasonable because those who never earn enough money to pay back their tuition will never have to do so.’

The paper, titled A Degree of Fairness, says introducing fees for EU students next year would remove a cap on the number of Scottish students who can attend universities. It says it would be ‘bizarre’ for the Scottish Government to continue paying EU students’ fees after Brexit.

Mr Deerin said tuition fees should not be an ideological or political issue.

‘This is about the survival of our university sector,’ he said. ‘To fail to redress the balance would be an act of national self-harm.’