Scottish voters are divided over Scotland’s policy of free tuition for Scottish studentsas the crisis over university finances intensified.
A poll commissioned by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland found that up to 48% of voters believe Scottish students who can afford it should pay for tuition, with 29% opposed.
A different multiple-choice question produced a closer result. It found 43% believed those who could afford to should pay, while 44% felt every student should get free tuition.
Scottish universities are among a growing number across the UK in deep financial peril, with Dundee expected to be the first to receive part of a £10m government bailout.
Free tuition for undergraduates was first introduced in 2008 by the Scottish National party, in a vote-winning move to scrap the graduate endowment tax then used to partly pay for tuition in Scotland.
However, free tuition has come under much greater scrutiny after Dundee University revealed it was on the brink of insolvency, while Edinburgh University plans to cut £140m to avoid going into deficit.
Scottish universities receive £7,610 per head to teach Scottish students, less than the £9,250 English and Welsh universities can charge, at a total cost of about £715m a year.
That means universities rely on foreign students paying full-cost fees to subsidise teaching costs for Scottish students. The number of overseas students coming to Scotland fell by 10,000 in 2023-24, adding to the financial pressures and increasing competition between universities.
The free tuition policy also means the Scottish government caps the number of Scottish students who can go to university, which prevents some Scots from getting the university places they want.
The trust, set up in 1901 by the Scottish-born US industrialist Andrew Carnegie, is establishing a citizens’ jury to review how Scottish universities should be funded.
It will be formed in April with 22 participants of different backgrounds taking part in six online evidence sessions. It is due to report in January 2026, four months before the next Scottish parliament election.
Hannah Garrow, the trust’s chief executive, said it believed there was an evidence gap about what voters really thought. “We’ve known for some time that something needs to change. We need to have a more open and nuanced debate about it.”
A spokesperson for Universities Scotland, the sector’s representative body, supported the move. “For far too long Scotland’s conversation about university funding has been in a binary loop of free versus fees. It’s time to move beyond that,” she said.
The Scottish government said its commitment to free tuition would not change. “Access to higher education should be based on the ability to learn – not the ability to pay,” a spokesperson said.
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“The commitment also ensures that Scottish students do not accrue additional tuition fee loan debt incurred by their peers in the rest of the UK.”
To widespread shock, Dundee revealed earlier in March it needed to sack 635 staff, sell off buildings and cut its teaching by 20% to save £35m, or face going bust.
Strike action is being discussed at Dundee, Edinburgh and a string of English universities also planning to cut costs by closing courses and laying off staff through non-replacement or redundancies.
On Thursday, strikes were held at the University of East Anglia, with University and College Union (UCU) members electing to strike again this week in protest at plans to cut 190 jobs in an effort to save £11m.
UCU members at Newcastle University will also strike for a week from Monday over the loss of about 300 jobs designed to shrink its wage bill by £20m. Staff at Brunel University of London will strike for three days to protest against more than 400 job cuts.
Although universities in England receive more tuition funding per student than their peers in Scotland, they receive less in direct grants from government, and the value of domestic fees has been sharply eroded by inflation.
