In Scotland, domestic students do not pay tuition fees. Instead, universities receive funding from the Scottish Government for each student, with the amounts varying according to the nature of each individual’s studies - although the amount each institution receives through this process does not actually cover the cost of delivering a degree to a homegrown student.

Students from the rest of the UK coming to Scotland are charged fees of £9250, while those coming from overseas can face fees of more than £50,000 per year for the most expensive courses in the highest-charging institutions.

In the rest of the UK, students are charged fees to attend university.

In England and Wales, all UK-resident students are charged £9250 per year, while in Northern Ireland, domestic students pay a lower fee of £4750 per year. As is the case in Scotland, universities can charge foreign students far higher fees.

Europe

Countries across Europe operate a range of different systems for university access, making direct comparisons that incorporate every avenue and eventuality extremely difficult.

However, Eurydice – which collates and shares education data from across Europe – does provide information on the minimum, maximum, and most common fee levels for students across the continent.

In countries which charge students for tuition, annual fees range from minimums of €17 to maximums of €17,000.

Amongst countries where fees are payable, the lowest minimum annual charges are found in Croatia (€17), Germany (€50), North Macedonia (€100) and Slovenia (€40). In contrast, the highest minimum fee levels are found in Ireland (€1000), Latvia (€900), Liechtenstein (€1950), Lithuania (€1235) and the Netherlands (€2209).

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If we look instead at the maximum standard fee levels charged across the continent, the most expensive countries are Hungary (€12,796), Lithuania (€17,060) and Slovenia (€15,000), whereas  maximum student fees are far lower in countries such as Czechia (€36), Croatia (€66) and Germany (€75).

However, it is perhaps most helpful to consider the 'most common' amount of fees paid by full-time students in each country. Using those figures, we find that there are eight countries typically charging students €1000 or more per year: Hungary (€1476), Ireland (€1000), Italy (€1592), Latvia (€2200), Lithuania (€2279), the Netherlands (€2209), Spain (€1048) and Switzerland (€1540).

This means that tuition fees of £9250 applied by universities in the UK are more than four times higher than the most expensive typical tuition fees in Europe.

But a significant number of European countries do not typically charge anything to attend university. Free tuition is available to domestic (including EU, where applicable) students in Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden.

What does this mean for Scotland?

The most striking thing about university fees in Europe is the degree of variation across the continent.

Free tuition is standard across Scandinavia and is also available in Estonia, an emerging educational heavyweight. A wealthy nation like the Netherlands typically charges fees towards the top end of the scale, whereas Montenegro - one of the poorest countries in Europe - does not.

In some countries, the gap between minimum and maximum fees is measured in hundreds, or even tens, of Euros, whereas in others the difference runs to five-figures.

The clearest lesson from any analysis of university funding models is that decisions over student fess are a matter of national choices and priorities rather than any cold, hard rules of economic necessity.