EU Students in Scotland

6 weeeks ago I wrote:-

"One is the issue of EU undergraduate students from outside the United Kingdom who attend UK universities. Until 2006, such students faced a level playing field between Scotland and England. Since 2006, they have paid a tuition fee of over £3000 per year to study in England; but de facto a zero tuition fee to study in Scotland.

If one compares the 1^st year enrolment of such students between 2005-2006 and 2008-2009, the numbers in England went up from 33700 to 37200, a rise of just over 9%; but the numbers in Scotland in the same time period went up from 4700 to 6400, a rise of 27%. ......... (While tuition fees remain effectively zero for undergraduate Scottish students, the Scottish Government has no choice. It can, and does, discriminate against English students; but EU law does not allow it to discriminate against other EU countries).

Firstly, it does not take much imagination to see that, if post-2012 Scottish tuition fees remain effectively zero and English tuition fees rise as planned to up to £9000 per year, we are likely to see still more Scottish university places filled from elsewhere in the EU: all at the expense of the Scottish Government.

Secondly, .....a system where the undergraduate numbers quota is firmly capped by the Scottish Government, each non-Scottish EU undergraduate student who is admitted to a Scottish university deprives an aspirant Scottish undergraduate of a university place. "

 

The Scottish Government is now wriggling with that problem, as their Green Paper last week shows. But has, as an expert pointed out, no "wriggle room".

 

The Scottish Government has no locus in the EU. The mind boggles at Alex Salmond and Mike Russell trying to persuade Cameron and Cable (whose government has an EU locus) to petition the EU on what they (i.e. Salmond and Russell) apparently see as a manifest injustice.