

Scotland says no to tuition fees - mmphosis
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2010/06/04093741

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duncan_bayne
The headline is inaccurate; it should be "Scotland says tuition fees to be met
by taxpayers, not individual students." TANSTAAFL.

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pessimizer
That's not more accurate. Tuition fees are fees introduced to supplement
taxpayer support. If they are never introduced, it is bizarre to say that
taxpayers are paying them.

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arethuza
Scottish Universities _do_ charge fees - if you aren't from the appropriate
place (probably the entire UK and EU these days) or if you want to do multiple
degrees then you have to find the money for them somewhere. My wife has four
degrees and (she changed career from Finance to Law) - and her LLB and LLM
were paid for privately.

As a normal student doing a single undergraduate degree you were never really
aware of how much your course cost but the University was certainly getting a
chunk of money from the relevant Government department - whether you call
these "tuition fees" isn't that important.

Scotland has had a tradition of meritocratic access to Univerities that goes
back a long time - within that context having fees paid for by taxpayers
doesn't look that odd. Certainly I benefited from it - I came from a low
income family from the rural North of Scotland and all four of my siblings and
I went to University/College.

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pessimizer
I have no opinion about whether tuition fees in Scotland are warranted or not,
I'm just saying that it's incoherent to say that tuition fees are being paid
by the taxpayer after an announcement that tuition fees will not be introduced
in Scotland.

Hypothetically, assume that there were already tuition fees in Scotland
(without equivocating between fees paid from "relevant Government
department(s)" and tuition fees) and that the government had just announced
that they would not be _increasing_ the tuition fee. Would it be more accurate
to say "Scotland says tuition fee increase to be met by taxpayers, not
individual students."?

Saying that recent increases in the costs of higher education will not be
shifted from the taxpayer to the individual student in Scotland would be fair.
Saying the taxpayers are supplementing themselves is nonsensical.

