Posted: Apr 28, 2015 6:58 pm
mrjonno wrote:If a family moves permanently to Scotland (as opposed to the student choosing a Scottish university when they are resident in England) then they will be Scottish resident, and the Scottish education system and laws will apply.
No federal system in the world would allow that discrimination.
We're not in a federal system currently.
The problem with "free tuition" (not free, really an argument over whether students or general taxation pays for it) is actually one that exists in all EU countries, that is the same rules have to apply across member states. If Scotland were independent, the fees couldnt be charged at English rates to students from England, but we arent, so we can. But other countries do the same thing using different methods, so it happens.
The problem you seem to be missing with tuition fees is this - it was the English education system that brought them in. Want to fix it? Do it, please.
edit - this is one of those issues around devolution that is a mess. When the English education system was changed to move the funding OUT of central taxation into the students responsibility, the funding was cut, and so the funding to Scotland for education was cut. But we didnt want to cut education funding for universities. So the money is pulled from elsewhere, and the students from other parts of UK need to pay the same as they pay in England, with the side effect of preventing Scottish universities not having enough places for Scottish students due to people from rest of UK trying to avoid WESTMINSTERS tuition fees.