SNP paper on tuition fees must commit to public funding
For immediate release 7 December 2010
Today's poll commissioned by NUS Scotland confirms that any move in the Scottish Parliament to overturn this session's abolition of tuition fees would be deeply unpopular with the Scottish people. The Green MSPs therefore today urged SNP Ministers not to depart from the public funding model agreed in 2008 when they publish next week's Green Paper on the future of student finance in Scotland.
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
"It's not clear why the SNP Government have decided to review student funding unless they plan to undermine the hard-won public funding model we helped to deliver in 2008. Across Scotland, students and those hoping to go to university will be watching anxiously to see if the SNP plan to start charging for tuition, either through some new tuition fee model or another form of graduate tax
"We already have a progressive way of taxing any additional income graduates gain as a result of their degree - it's called income tax. Public funding of higher education is an essential part of Scotland's social fabric, and we will oppose any attempt by the SNP to move away from this principle. They must not now try to copy the Lib Dems' spectacular u-turn, or they will also copy their spectacular collapse in the polls."