Starting on Monday, The Herald launches its latest impact series.

In recent months we have explored Scotland’s relationship with alcohol, the housing emergency harming communities across the country, and the reality of the New Highland Clearances.

Before the summer, we also investigated The State of Scotland’s Colleges; now, we’re turning our focus to universities.

These institutions make an enormous contribution to our society, both economically and culturally, and have done so for hundreds of years. They offer life-changing opportunities to their students, and their alumni have not just influenced the world – many of them have changed it.

Government ministers love to talk about our “internationally renowned universities”, and are always on hand to celebrate the latest success – but there’s another story to be told.

Scotland’s university sector is hugely important and enormously successful, but there are increasing fears about the underlying financial health and sustainability of these vital institutions.

That’s why our new series is called ‘Scottish Universities: funding, fees, and the future.’


When discussing university funding in Scotland, the matter of free tuition is, of course, a central consideration. Some believe that this policy is simply unaffordable and that introducing fees for students is a necessary step, but our investigation suggests that this is, at best, a serious over-simplification.

In fact, stakeholders are unflinching in their support of free tuition, and none of Scotland’s main political parties say that they currently support the introduction of student fees. The real challenge is finding a way to adequately fund that commitment.

That will require difficult conversations between government and sector leaders.

But in order to have a more serious, in-depth discussion, we need to know the reality of university funding and spending levels, and that’s a problem. Despite the eye-watering sums moving to and from universities each year, a lot of the key data – for example, regarding the actual, real-terms costs of delivering a degree – turned out to be difficult to access or, in the worst cases, completely non-existent.

We’ve tried to do something about that in the hope that we can help spark the sort of informed debate on university funding that our country badly needs.

In the coming days we’ll explore the costs of delivering university education, the contribution of foreign students to university finances, the different funding regimes in place across Europe, and more.

We will also break down important data about the people who study at Scottish universities, allowing you to understand more not just about the sector as a whole, but about individual institutions across the country.

On top of all that, we’ll also look both beyond our borders and into the future and ask about universities can meet the multiple, interconnected challenges of a rapidly changing world.

Subscribe now for full access to all of this, and the rest of our industry-leading content, and join us as we search for the truth about Scotland’s universities.