Alex Salmond will confirm today that a re-elected SNP government at Holyrood would not charge Scottish students for higher education.
The First Minister’s pledge, to be made at his party’s pre-election conference in Glasgow, means that, to the despair of university principals, the country’s two main political parties appear to be turning a deaf ear to their claims that the institutions will soon have to confront a sizeable funding gap with their counterparts in England.
Only a week after Labour made the same pledge, the First Minister will say that “rocks will melt in the sun” — a phrase he has used before on the issue — before he allows Scottish students to be be charged fees.
It means that both parties now believe the funding gap between universities in Scotland and England will be only £93 million and can be bridged without the need to charge upfront fees or a graduate contribution.
The figure is disputed by the principals who say that evidence presented by a task force set up jointly by the government and the universities suggests that it could reach £324 million.
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However Mr Salmond will reassure the principals that they will be supported sufficiently by his party in order “to keep pace with leading institutions in the UK and beyond” — although he will not today give details of how he plans to do this if the principals’ sums turn out to be right.
He will tell SNP delegates that the party will “protect and defend” the Scottish principle of free education, based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay.
The First Minister will say that the pledge is in stark contrast to what he will call “the wholesale withdrawal” of state support for higher education being pursued in England.
Mr Salmond will add: “This nation pioneered free education for all which resulted in Scots inventing and explaining much of the modern world. We called this the Scottish Enlightenment.
“And out of educational access came social mobility as we reached all the talents of a nation to change the world for the better. We can do so again.
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Some of our university principals fear that we will fall behind England. We will not. We do not intend to withdraw the state from higher education. Any funding gap will be closed.”Of the four main political parties in Scotland, only the Conservatives have backed a graduate contribution. The Liberal Democrats have indicated that they also want to keep higher education free but that there may be a need to rework other devolved benefits such as concessionary travel and free prescriptions in order to pay for it.
Mike Russell, the SNP Education Secretary, will next week lay out details of how his party intends to fill the funding gap, although the universities have warned that, whatever the deficit, it will not be filled by philanthropic giving, investment from business or efficiency savings — leaving either increased state investment or a contribution from university graduates, now ruled out by Labour and the SNP.
Many observers believe that if the route is more state funding then resources will have to be withdrawn from other devolved policy areas. A growing possibility is that students from England studying in Scotland will have to pay more, possibly £6,375 a year.