Universities remain ‘elitist’

Ending tuition fees for Scottish students has failed to widen access to the country’s universities, a leading academic has warned. Professor Sheila Riddell, of Edinburgh University’s school of education, said free tuition had not “markedly altered” recruitment of those from the poorest backgrounds, writes Chris Marshall for The Scotsman.

While students elsewhere in the UK pay up to £9,000 a year in fees, Scots have not paid for the cost of tuition since the graduate endowment was abolished in 2008. Writing in The Scotsman, Riddell said the proportion of working-class students at Scotland’s leading universities had actually fallen slightly in the past decade.

She said she wanted to “pose the question” that fees could be reintroduced, with only 20% of people in Scotland now believing students should be exempt from the cost of tuition.
Full report on the http://Scotsman.com site