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.
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.
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.
No good or service - that is anything that involves human labour - can possibly be free. Even if you 'employ' slaves, you will still incur a cost (and so will the slaves).
When considering matters of policy, I think it is more useful to talk in terms of 'who should pay for X?' instead of 'should X be free?'
I'm confused about what you mean here. Are you saying that no individual can net a positive return from any endeavor?
Also, there's no reason to assume that a tuition fee would lower the obligations of the taxpayer in any way. Money is fungible. Neither side of the debate is questioning that university education will be paid for by the taxpayer.
