The law of unintended consequences strikes again ...

I have written before about the outrageous SNP policy that Scottish Universities charge fees to students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland - whose parents pay taxes which, through the Barnett Formula, help fund those universities - while students from Scotland or other EU countries do not.

The injustice to students from the rest of the UK is obvious but the law of unintended consequences is coming home to roost and this is causing problems for young people in Scotland too.

"Straight A" students from Scotland are being rejected by Scottish Universities in favour of students from RUK and Non-EU countries.

Under the SNP-run Scottish government's current funding system the Scottish Funding Council determines the number of places available for students from Scotland and the EU based on the amount of funding available. Universities are free to set the number of students taken in from England and other countries who pay fees.

An analysis of places available through the clearing process earlier this year revealed that Glasgow University had 29 courses available to hopefuls from elsewhere in the UK but only five for Scottish students. Applicants to Aberdeen University from England could pick from a list of 390 courses but none was available to Scottish school leavers.

As all-to-often happens, badly-thought through policies are hurting the very people they are meant to help.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more