Great Scott! How Scottish Independence could mean degrees without fees.

By Adam BK (Education Officer 14/15).

"The average student leaves with more than £44,000 of debt," as education officer this is one of my go-to facts when fighting printing prices or hidden course costs at our university. But imagine a world where students could study at a leading institution and, dare I say, on a leafy, green campus for the fraction of the price; imagine Scotland.

University is currently free in Scotland - for Scottish people, and French people, and Dutch people, and Irish People, and German people and Hungarian people too. In fact, the only people in the continent who have to pay for a university education in Scotland are the poor sods that live in other parts of the United Kingdom. But with less than two months until Scotland votes on independence could this all be about to change?

The European Union certainly think so. As Ron Burgundy once told me, the term EU actually derives from the Latin EU, meaning lover of regulations. They have rules prohibiting the sale of bendy cucumbers, they have rules against the storing olive oil in unlabelled decanters, and unsurprisingly they have rules about university fees. The rules are clear, institutions inside the EU are not allowed to discriminate against students from other member states and charge them more because of their nationality. The only glitch with this harmonic policy is that the treaty makes no provision for internal discrimination within member states, meaning Scottish universities are able to sting English, Welsh and Northern Irish students while those born north of the border enjoy a free degree. Of course, were Scotland to vote in favour of independence then England would be just as foreign as Luxembourg or Malta, in the eyes of the European Union at least.

Scotland’s commitment to free education for their students is admirable but an independent Scotland that was able to negotiate EU membership would become obliged to extend their offer of free tuition to students from across the UK. This wouldn’t be popular in the newly independent land that Alex Salmond envisages. Firstly, it would deprive Scottish institutions of the £40 million or so that they currently receive from fee paying Britons. (You can’t help wondering whose job it would be to change all of that into Euros at the Post Office, were Scotland to leave our united kingdom). Worse still for the Scots would be the predicted influx of English students, crossing the border in search of a fee free degree. Less than 5,000 students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland currently enrol at Scottish Universities each year, though Scottish education secretary Mike Russel expects this number to rise seven-fold to more than 30,000 if Scotland was mandated to extend free tuition to all UK citizens. The anxiety surrounding the emergence of a wealth of “fee refugees” is just one uncertainty in the debate surrounding Scottish independence.

Indeed, their very membership to the EU would need to be negotiated, with officials in Brussels suggesting that the process could be far from straight-forward. Difficult conversations surrounding the Euro and fishing-rights would need to occur, and receive unanimous approval from the existing 28 member countries. Divisive too, will be the conversation surrounding boarder control and Scotland’s ability to negotiate an opt-out of the Schengen Agreement, that facilitates free and passport-less movement across the internal borders of Europe. At this stage you may well be thinking how will this affect me in Nottingham? The honest answer is, we don’t really know. Nottingham may climb a few places in the university league tables if St. Andrews and Edinburgh got the chop. On a broader scale, there is a suggestion that the Labour party may struggle in Westminster, with the loss of the parliamentary seats held in Scotland. Equally, our hopes of Olympic success may also suffer; with prominent Scottish athletes no longer eligible to compete for Team GB.

In truth, there are a thousand and one questions regarding how an independent Scotland would operate, with very few answers likely to be concretised until a decision is made by the Scottish people in September. Though most of us will have no say, it certainly promises to be a hard-fought contest and quite possibly the most dramatic election in recent history. Too often, ballot papers feel more like questionnaires than the opportunity to cast a meaningful and democratic vote. The referendum should offer the people of Scotland a chance to witness a tangible outcome, and that should be seen as a victory for freedom and political engagement, whatever the decision. Opinion polls suggest that the “No" (to independence) campaign is slightly ahead, but a shift in those yet to make up their minds could prove pivotal. If you want a prediction, I think the No campaign will ultimately prosper - bold change is often appealing but the magnitude of uncertainty will prove too much for many, when it comes to putting ink on paper on September 18th.

Will the next generation of Britons be able to study for free at Scottish Universities?

It’s a definite possible maybe.

Follow Adam on Twitter @UoNSU_Education

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