University in Scotland

[Watchagotch72]

I’m trying to get my head around the current situation regarding Uni applications / fee status / quotas for Scottish unis.

as I understand it the Scot gov funds a certain number of places at Scottish unis for ‘local’ (resident in Scotland) applicants, where they will effectively not pay any fees.

then there are ‘rUK’ places - students from the other home nations - where the fees are around £9,500 per year.

then there are international students, from everywhere else, who will pay up to £40k a year, depending on the course.

my question is: what happens to ‘local’ students who don’t get an offer for a ‘local’ place? Can they then join the ‘rUK’ student quota and pay the £9.5k per year fees?

Do most ‘local’ applicants get a ‘local’ place? What do they if they don’t?

That is a very good point!

Totally. Live in a shack in the back of beyond that happens to share a postcode with the local shooting estate and you are all of a sudden loaded - apparently

It’s going to have to go to some sort of means-testing on an individual basis, surely? With a sliding scale of fees from zero to RUK / home fees applying?

which is how the old grant award system worked.

DH stayed at the family home in the city he studied in, it didn't make sense to live in halls as it would have meant more expense.

I did the opposite and moved from the family home and stayed in halls as a student. I did a degree where I worked through the summer on placements so it made sense to be local.

I think many will stay at home these days due to COL. I can see my own DC choosing a local university for those reasons in the future.

Im a Scottish student who attended an English university. It was 10+ years ago now, just before the major fee rises, so my fees began at £3 ish k per year and rose annually, I think they were just short of £4k when I left. As a PP said, I saved a years living costs etc due to English courses being 3 years long. Looking back, almost everyone on my course had moved to attend. Very few lived at home. Those who did definitely missed out on the university experience, I never saw them outwith the classroom. I learned so much at uni, cooking, washing, general independence, it was a hugely beneficial life learning experience. My friends at home in Scotland tended to attend local universities and would travel in. This seemed to be much more common.

@MayIDestroyYou Both my DC got a place at Oxbridge. They got a tuition loan plus the usual Scottish maintenance money, and Oxbridge also offers a bursary for lower income students. Oxbridge is cost effective to go to if you are happy to study in England, as accommodation is cheaper (term time only and terms are short), and they have bursaries. One of my DCs would have studied in Germany (very low fees) if they hadn't got into Oxbridge. That is do-able if your child has the commitment to learn German (DC learned it outside of school) and makes sure they get the right Highers to satisfy the criteria. If the other DC hadn't got into Oxbridge they'd have gone to a different English university, as they were better at their academic subject than the possible Scottish universities.

When I went to university in Edinburgh from a small Scottish town in the 80’s going away to study was definitely a thing. I’ve lived in London for over 30 years now and currently have children at university in other English cities. I’ve recently become aware of the problems in the current Scottish system for Scots students, basically that many of them dont have the same opportunity to do popular courses at prestigious scottish universities as people from the RUK because of the quota system. Also that if they choose to study in England or wales, the maximum loan offered by the Scottish government might not be enough to do so. And generally that students in scotland limit themselves to what they can get in scotland because its ‘free’. I agree with a previous poster that the Scottish govt should fund poorer students properly through a better grant system and offer others loans equivalent to English loans so they all have the same opportunity as students in RUK

When I looked at the figures for loans for university, a big advantage of being in Scotland was that the rate of interest for paying back the loan was MUCH lower than for English students. Hopefully that's still the case. Something else I like is the way that friends are at university near each other (often with some at the same uni) and reasonably close to home, so they can occasionally see friends and family. DC's friends recommend going to uni about 2 hours away from home - not too far and not too close.