scottish student fees

[egopostulosomnus]

With scottish students never having had to pay fees, do a higher proportion of 'poor' students apply than in england?

Or does it not really make a massive difference?
Genuine question, I have no idea....and wouldn't know where to look to find comparison data.

Nightmarebeforechristmas, sorry I was rude to you earlier. I am in bed throwing up today. Lots of other people are more articulate than me.

AgentProvocateur thats ok.
still don't understand though.
do all the taxes go into one pot, the get shared out?

I can't tell you about uk differences, but I do know that when fees were abolished in Ireland in the early 90's the percentages of applications did not significantly change.

There was a good mix of students from all backgrounds when I went to uni in Scotland 2001-2005. Loans for living expenses were means tested and people from single parent families got grants they didn't have to pay back. My parents earned just above the threshold so I got very little loan but my family was by no means well off and they couldn't really contribute much, but it wouldn't put me off going. Not sure if that helps. The level of debt I'd end up with was certainly not something I even considered when applying to uni - mine is about £7k but I think the maximum for someone studying at the same time as myself would be around the £18k mark for a four-year honours course, including the 'graduate endowment' that was added upon graduation when I was studying. Five and a half years after graduating I'm working in the feild I trained for and am earning £17k and paying my loan off at £16 per month. Perhaps if I had debt of over £20k it would affect my decision, but I don't remember anyone ever mentioning the debt they'd have to pay back after uni.

Getting annoyed with the 'England subsidises Scotland' line being brought out again. This is not true. Scotland pays into the UK Treasury like the other nations of the UK, then the Scottish Government receives a grant of some of that money back to pay for devolved matters such as health, education, transport (note this is MSPs not Scottish MPs, they are not the same people who serve in Westminster). There are limited figures on exactly what Scotland pays in as it all goes to a central pot, but bearing in mind this is not just individual tax-payers but also includes massive industry such as oil and whisky, it is a considerable amount. The latest GERS figures suggest that Scotland is actually in surplus - ie putting in more than it gets back through the current financial settlement.
Scotland has higher spending per head than in England because of geographical needs being different - eg. A school for 2000 pupils in London would cover a relatively small geographical area so kids could walk there whereas in the Highlands of Scotland you'd probably need around three smaller schools to serve that many kids and transport for a lot of them because they are so spread out. And in the Islands a lot of kids have to board at state schools throughout the week because they require two boats just to get from home to school. As you can imagine the cost of this is a lot more than providing one school building for kids within a couple of mile radius. It is not about Scots getting more than elsewhere in the UK so much as it costing more to provide the same service.
Hope this makes some sense.

You've explained that very well fayc84 :)

Just to clarify the EU fees situation. Member countries have to charge other EU countries' students the 'local fee rate'. So - they can't charge more than they charge their own students.

English students are from the same EU country as Scottish/Welsh students - so that rule doesn't apply.