The topic of free university tuition for people in Scotland has been back in the headlines in recent days.

It is never that far from the headlines it seems, but the thoughts of University of Glasgow principal Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli were, not surprisingly, noteworthy.

And the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) this week published a paper on Scottish university finances, in which real-terms falls in funding for the institutions for teaching home students were highlighted.

In an exclusive interview with Dani Garavelli for The Herald, Professor Muscatelli called on the SNP to plug the gap in funding for the teaching of Scottish undergraduates.

Interviewed the day after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer raised English tuition fees to £9,535 a year, Professor Muscatelli said the Scottish and UK governments must stop relying on the “kindness of strangers”.

The article noted: “The ‘kindness of strangers’ is a term used to describe a country’s dependence on external investment to fund its current account deficit. Here, it applies to the dependence on international students whose hefty fees are required to keep the universities afloat.”

Reading on, it was a relief to find that Professor Muscatelli was not advocating the end of free university tuition for students living in Scotland.

He said it was up to society to decide whether university tuition should be free but that, for now, in Scotland, there appeared to be a consensus in favour.

This assessment of a consensus being in favour of free tuition was reassuring.

A Scottish Government spokesman meanwhile declared: “The Scottish Government appreciates the valuable contribution universities make to Scotland’s economy and wider society. That is why we continue to invest over £1 billion [a year] in the sector to support the delivery of excellent teaching, research and innovation.

“This funding has protected free tuition, ensuring record numbers of Scots are going to university because of their ability to learn and not their ability to pay. We will continue to work with universities in the coming year on our shared ambitions to widen access to education and to drive world-class research and teaching.”

It is surely absolutely crucial that access to university education is based on “ability to learn” and not “ability to pay”.

The trebling of university tuition fees south of the Border for UK students in the wake of the Conservatives’ 2010 general election victory was horrifying. And it was supported by the Liberal Democrats, in their capacity as coalition partners of the Tories at that stage, in what marked one of several policy U-turns from that party which would have been inconceivable before the 2010 election.

It was encouraging to hear Sir Keir signal in 2020 that he would follow the example of the Scottish Government on free tuition.

Under “social justice”, one of Sir Keir’s 10 pledges in 2020 when he was standing for Labour leader, the politician promised to “support the abolition of tuition fees and invest in lifelong learning”.

However, as with his opposition to Brexit, this pledge was short-lived.

Asked about this pledge on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in the spring of last year, Sir Keir replied: “We are likely to move on from that commitment, because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation."

Labour did indeed “move on” from that commitment.

That is a great pity because it would obviously be good if people living south of the Border were able to access free university tuition at English universities.

We must maximise the talent pool, given how crucial it is for Scotland and the UK as a whole to have a highly skilled workforce for economic success and consequently living standards.

Free university tuition for people in Scotland helps maximise the talent pool, by taking away what would be an insurmountable barrier for many.

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It avoids a scenario where access to higher education is based on ability to pay or propensity to take on eye-watering debt. This is crucial because, in such a scenario, the talent pool would be restricted greatly and the wealthy would snap up places at top institutions easily in the face of much-reduced competition, with merit playing far less of a part.

Clearly, there is room for debate over the amount of funding required for universities to ensure free tuition works and sufficient places are available.

However, we must not be tempted to think introducing English-style tuition fees would be better because, for example, some people living in Scotland and used to paying high private school fees argue noisily for such an arrangement in the belief their children would be more likely to get a Scottish university place in such a scenario. And we must realise most parents on lower and middle incomes, barring some kind of huge savings pot or benefactor elsewhere in the family, would not be able to save their child from racking up debt by paying the kind of fees levied on home students in England.

The IFS noted in February: “In 2022/23, SAAS [the Student Awards Agency Scotland] paid tuition fees for 117,000 full-time undergraduate students, at a total cost of £200 million.

“In addition, the Scottish Government also provides funding to the Scottish Funding Council, which distributes this to universities. The main teaching grant was worth £700 million (or just under £5,800 per student) in both 2022/23 and 2023/24.”

The IFS, in its latest paper, makes a salient point about a real-terms drop in funding for Scottish universities in relation to the teaching grant for home students.

It notes in this context that keeping the number of funded places fixed and maintaining real-terms per-student resources at 2024/25 levels in the forthcoming 2025/26 fiscal year would require a cash-terms increase in funding of around £16 million or 2.4% in next month’s Scottish Budget. And the IFS observes that “going further and restoring per-student resources to 2021/22 levels in real terms would require a cash-terms increase in resources of £103 million (15.2%)”.

These are not huge sums in the scheme of things.

And Labour’s UK Budget last month has added £3.4 billion to the Scottish Government’s Budget for 2025/26 by way of Barnett consequentials.

It should be noted that Scotland’s devolved budget was squeezed excruciatingly under the Tories and the Scottish Government has many pressing priorities.

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In this context, it has been most heartening to hear the Scottish Government’s steadfast tone when it has come to pledging its commitment to free university tuition for people living in Scotland. And hopefully it might be able to boost university funding to some degree in the forthcoming Budget.

The sometimes cacophonous lobbying in Scotland criticising the Scottish Government’s policy on free university tuition must be ignored at all costs.

In this context, another of the IFS’s observations makes for interesting reading.

If you believed the noisy lobby, you might think the eye-watering university tuition fees brought in by the Tories in England had resulted in the perfect model for funding for universities south of the Border. And those listening to critics of the SNP’s policy of free university tuition might be forgiven for forming the impression that Scottish universities were being so starved of finance they were in danger of being sent back to the Stone Age.

The IFS, while noting “a squeeze since”, did observe that “the financial position of Scottish universities was relatively healthy in 2022/23, at least compared with their English counterparts”.

Clearly, Scottish universities can make a good case for an increase in funding and hopefully there will be scope in the Budget to deliver something. However, the IFS’s observation about the relative financial positions of Scottish and English universities in 2022/23 is at least somewhat heartening given the noisy criticism of the SNP’s policy that you hear.

And it is crucial for the long-term prosperity of Scotland, and from a societal perspective, that people with ability can access free university tuition if they wish to do so.