Higher Education extracts from Parties’ Manifesto
Labour
Scottish Labour's manifesto promises an Education Bill within 100 days of the election and a widespread effort to boost skills.
It also sets out plans to:
•	create a radical expansion of languages and science teaching throughout education
•	increase the number of university places, especially in the sciences and at postgraduate level
•	raise the education and training leaving age to 18
BUILDING STANDARDS, RAISING ASPIRATION
Raising the age of participation
Scottish Labour will end dropping out at 16. We will make leaving school before age 18 conditional on a young person staying meaningfully engaged in higher or further education, skills training, work or volunteering. ‘Doing nothing’ will not be an option for 16 and 17 year olds.
We will significantly expand the number of opportunities available to 16 and 17 year olds in order that every youngster has an array of opportunities available to them:
FIRST CLASS COLLEGES AND WORLD CLASS UNIVERSITIES
While Scottish Labour has been investing in Scotland’s colleges and universities other countries are doing the same. We cannot stand still or Scotland will fall behind. We must invest in high skills because Scotland has no future as a low skill economy.
Our ambition is to lead the world in new industries and technologies, with highly skilled jobs. We want our young people to be brimming with the confidence and skills to compete in an increasingly competitive world throughout their lives.
We have already seen real progress. The proportion of the workforce with degrees has risen from 14% in 1997 to 23%.
Scottish Labour is committed to raising that figure to 50% by 2020.
Universities
Scottish Labour has increased funding for universities, including a 400% increase in their capital budgets to modernise buildings and equipment, and we will continue to invest to keep our universities world class and internationally competitive.
For the first time in nearly a decade, Scottish Labour will raise the cap on student numbers in Scottish higher education.
We will work with university principals to ensure that a fair proportion of students from Scottish schools can access these new places and that there is a significant increase in the numbers of young Scots studying science and technology at undergraduate and post graduate level.
Scottish Labour will also ensure increased funding brings a further widening of access to higher education and we will make widening access to higher education a central part of our education programme in the next parliament.
We will create new university schools, twinning our universities with secondary schools in our most deprived areas to raise the aspirations of our brightest children no matter what their background.
Scottish Labour will not introduce top up tuition fees. Labour remains committed to the graduate endowment as a means of financing young people from the poorest families to study in higher education.
To continue to help students meet the day to day costs of studying in higher education, Scottish Labour will raise the amount of the student loan available to each student. We will build upon the introduction of student bursary grants and educational maintenance allowances to support those whose financial position might discourage them from continuing in education. Scottish Labour is committed to helping Scottish universities find new and alternative revenue streams including business and alumni.
SNP 
The SNP would promote higher and further education by abolishing tuition fees and replacing the student loans system with means tested grants as part of measures to widen access to higher education. An extra £10 million a year would be spent on cutting-edge research, the creation of a Scottish life sciences institute would be supported, and further education would focus on imparting students with marketable skills.
Creating a springboard for life through Higher and further education
Access to education should be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.
An SNP government will abolish the Graduate Endowment tuition fee and replace the expensive and discredited Student Loans system with means-tested student grants. We will remove the burden of debt repayments owed by Scottish domiciled and resident graduates. We will promote widening access to Higher and Further education in Scotland encouraging and creating opportunities for people who may not have been able to access continuing education previously.
We will review the situation of part-time and post-graduate students and support efforts to attract more international students.
We recognise the key role colleges play in the economy and in their communities and will help them develop this role as part of a revitalised life-long learning agenda. Our universities compete on a global basis in research and development, and we need to provide more government support for them to continue to do so as a key driver in Scotland’s economic and enterprise agenda. That is why we will allocate an additional £10 million to support cutting edge research in Scotland.
We will also support the creation of a Scottish Life Sciences Institute. We believe such an Institute could play an important role in retaining and attracting the best scientists to Scotland and would act as a magnet for excellence in this important area of scientific research.
A skilled workforce
By getting it right in schools and other educational institutions we can ensure that more people have the qualities and skills that employers are looking for. That means we can save a great deal of time and money on remedial action in the post-school environment.
We will aim to ensure that people of all ages can access relevant, valued and quality assured training opportunities throughout their working lives to keep pace with the rapidly changing demands of the global economy. We will work with employers to help them with the practical support they need to tackle skills shortages and work with national agencies, training agencies, the voluntary sector and local community enterprises to promote activities which help increase the employability of individuals.
We will focus our skills strategy on real, marketable skills and ensure that the strategy is demand-led. We will review the modern apprenticeships programme to make sure that the skills being taught match skills gaps and that the system is flexible enough to encourage the maximum participation. In particular, we will aim to increase the number of small businesses taking part. In the long term, we will seek to relax the age restrictions on modern apprenticeships so that older workers can benefit from the programme too.

Liberal Democrats
Skills and training
Significant skills shortages are emerging in important sectors of our economy. At the same time, tens of thousands of young Scots are not in education, employment or training (NEET). We need to do more to support this group of disadvantaged and often disaffected young people, with a big expansion of the vocational education opportunities in our schools and colleges. We need to make the most of the hidden talent in Scotland. At the same time we need to support our students and further and higher education sectors. 
That’s why we want to see: 
•	more links between business and our schools to help develop a real culture of entrepreneurship in our young people. 
•	our colleges and schools working far more closely together to give a higher priority to vocational courses. 
•	an increase in modern apprenticeships. 
•	the graduate endowment abolished and top-up fees opposed.
Looking to skills and training, the Liberal Democrats recognise the need to do more to support the young Scots that are not in education, employment or training. Colleges would be encouraged to work far more closely with schools and a higher priority would be given to vocational courses.
To achieve these aims the Liberal Democrats would commit to a three per cent per year real terms increase to further education funding over the next spending review. They would also commit to pilot new business incubators in schools and further education colleges.
There would be increased investment in university buildings, making new funding available to improve facilities, and update and renew equipment.
The Liberal Democrats would support the call from Universities Scotland to increase investment in Scottish universities by an extra £168 million by the end of the next term of the Scottish Parliament.
A Liberal Democrat First Minister would ensure that Scottish graduates no longer had to pay the graduate endowment. The Liberal Democrats would also increase the level of bursaries given to the poorest students above inflation.
A National Widening Access Unit would be established to increase the numbers of students from poorer backgrounds in higher education.
Conservatives
The centrepiece of the Conservative Party’s education policy is a new Education Act, which will reduce the role of politicians in the education system.  Local authorities would be put in control of their overall budget for their area and councils would be responsible for the administration of catchments areas and school infrastructure.
The Tories would hold a ‘root and branch’ review of higher and further education funding.  They have indicated that they do not oppose the idea that students should contribute to the cost of their education but would consider the effectiveness of commercialising the student loan book to expand the financial assistance available.
All ‘unnecessary central direction’ to universities would be ended.
A Brighter Future for Universities and Colleges
Scotland’s universities and colleges continue to perform to an internationally renowned standard.  We are right to be proud of them, and we support them, wholeheartedly.  However, Conservatives worry about their future, both with regard to finance and independence.
The immediate concern is a financial one.  The introduction of top-up tuition fees in England has opened up a new revenue stream for them which Scottish universities simply cannot match.  The gap is large and increasing, and it is putting the financial security of our institutions at significant risk.  In response, Conservatives will hold a root and branch review, with a commission investigating the future funding of both our universities and our colleges.
Our commission would investigate the issue of student debt and finance.  We would ask it to consider the effectiveness of commercialising the student loan book in order to expand the amount of financial assistance available for students.  We do believe that there are great benefits derived from the possession of a degree.  A person’s earning potential can be expected to disproportionately inflate in comparison to someone who has not been to university.  Therefore, we do not have any particular difficulty with the idea of a student contributing towards the cost of their education.  The ability of a person – regardless of their background – to borrow as much money as they need to complete their course, safe in the knowledge that the earnings threshold for paying back their loan would be set much higher than it is at present, is the basis of a sound system for student finance.
The second major issue facing our universities is their autonomy from the government.  Politicians are too quick to interfere in the governance of universities and colleges.  It is utterly unacceptable, because the independence of governance of these institutions is the very reason why they continue to thrive.  We shall end all unnecessary central direction and interference in their activities.
Our approach to education at all levels is straight-forward.  The less political interference, and the more professional autonomy, the better.  We will put this into practice.
Greens
The Scottish Greens promise to scrap the current graduate endowment and bring back student grants as part of a move towards a national citizen’s income scheme, scrapping top-up fees for medical students as part of the process.
The manifesto sets out plans to cut the cost of international student visas and bring forward the date at which Fresh Talent applications can be made.  The Greens also pledge greater support for adult education and strong and campaigning student unions.
Further and higher education
Further and higher education have important roles in strengthening the economy and building equality in a green Scotland. Our outstanding universities and colleges will be crucial partners in developing a socially just country with a strong knowledge economy.
•	Student debt has reached unacceptable levels. We will scrap the current graduate endowment and bring back student grants. This would form part of moves towards a national citizen’s income scheme, guaranteeing a minimum income for students. Further education students also need greater financial support while studying at college.
•	We will scrap the top-up fees currently in place for medical students from other parts of the UK. We reject top-up fees as a method of funding higher education.
•	We will cut the cost of international student visas and bring forward the date at which Fresh Talent applications can be made, allowing better access to Scottish universities for international students. We will help institutions increase support for international students.
•	We recognise the role of adult education as an agent of progressive social and political change and will create a strategy for widening access to, and improving retention in, further and higher education, including greater support for part-time and informal study.
•	We support strong and campaigning student unions in universities and further education colleges. They are vital in ensuring that students can participate in decision making. We will ensure that university courts have popularly elected independent chairs along the lines of university rectors.

Scottish Socialist Party
Higher and further education 
In a devolved Scotland the SSP will campaign for: 
•	The reinstatement of student grants as a first step towards ending student poverty. 
•	Investment in affordable, quality accommodation for students. 
•	The abolition of all fees in the higher and further education sectors with the exception of courses which are compulsory for employment and which are fully funded by employers. 
•	The unification of all colleges into a co-operative network of institutions working together rather than competing against one another, under local democratic control. 
•	Remove the requirement for 50 per cent business sector representation on college boards, and replace this with representatives from teaching unions, ancillary staff, students, local councils and local communities. 
•	Encourage life-long learning by providing equal educational opportunities for mature students based on experience and prior learning. 
•	An end to the capping system in Further Education to enable colleges to meet demand for learning in the communities they serve, including evening class provision and ESOL classes (English for speakers of foreign languages). 
•	Increased provision of adult numeracy and literacy programmes. 
In an independent Scotland the SSP will campaign for: 
•	Students to be eligible for housing benefit. 
•	Employers to be compelled to allow paid time-off for training and life-long learning opportunities. 
Solidarity
Solidarity will introduce a bill to abolish the graduate endowment tax (tuition fees) and restore a non-means tested living grant to all students undertaking University or tertiary education. The bill will also establish a commission to establish the best methods of funding free education and financing quality research at academic institutions.
FREE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR ALL
Abolition of back ended tuition fees and restoration of the student grant. New Labour politicians are the masters of Orwellian doublespeak. “Education, Education, Education” was Tony Blair’s mantra before he came to power. “We want every child to have a world class education” ministers told us at every opportunity.
What they didn’t tell us was that by the time they’d finished this generation would be the first since the World War II to find it more difficult to go to University than their parents. Jack McConnell, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair all benefited from a University education that was free at the point of need; with proper grants – not loans – available to students. Yet these hypocrites, together with the Tories that preceded them, have seen fit to saddle those attending our universities today with loans instead of grants and back-ended fees for their tuition.  Once again, it’s back to the future. Access to university education is rapidly becoming the province only of those who can afford it. These multiple financial burdens weigh most onerously on students from low to average income backgrounds.
Before young graduates even start work or think about a mortgage they are emerging from University education (if they manage to last their course under such financial pressures!) saddled with huge debts.
The Scottish Executive’s own official statistics show that nearly 31,000 Scottish graduates have a debt of over £10,000, while 11,416 have debts of over £15,000, and nearly 2,500 have debts of over £20,000.
Undoubtedly these shocking figures would be even higher were it not for the high and increasing drop out figures of working class students unable to take the strain under New Labour’s new pay-as-you learn market orientated ideology.
New Labour and the Lib-Dems continue to perpetuate the myth that they “abolished” tuition fees (which they introduced in the first place!). All they actually did was make the payment of the fees back-ended rather than up front, in the form of the discredited graduate endowment tax.
All of this has combined to see a significant drop in student admissions of Scottish students to Scottish Universities over the last few years.
Solidarity believes that access to quality higher education, free at the point of need, should be the right of all citizens in a civilised society. We believe that investing in the graduate education of our young and mature students provides not only a significant benefit to those individuals but huge benefits to society as a whole.
Indeed, it is a sickening lie put about by cynical New Labour spin doctors that under the old system universities were starved of cash and that students made no contribution in return for the “advantages” conferred upon them by a graduate education.
Graduates in the UK pay on average – because of their higher salaries – more than £200, 000 in additional tax compared to non-graduates.
If free university education, with grants, was affordable for Jack McConnell’s generation, at a time when a Tory government was in power, when there was massive economic recession and more than 3 million unemployed, then why is it not affordable now?
Solidarity will introduce a bill to abolish the graduate endowment tax (tuition fees) and restore a non-means tested living grant to all students undertaking University or tertiary education. The bill will also establish a commission to establish the best methods of funding free education and financing quality research at our academic institutions, from one, or a combination, of the following options:
•	Increasing corporation tax - tycoons like Sir Tom Hunter are often in the papers bemoaning the lack of quality graduate. Perhaps their companies ought to be prepared to pay for them.
•	A Scottish Universities Research and Patent fund which can redistribute profits from research and patents at Scottish Universities back into the education system.
•	A general power of competence for Universities to borrow and invest for research, development and teaching.
•	Redirecting tax breaks for business back into university education
•	General taxation
•	Use of the Scottish parliamentary under spend
Solidarity has a vision of Scotland as a hi-tech world leader; of a new renaissance in literature and the arts; of a new progressive Scottish Enlightenment. To achieve any or all of these things we must realise market mechanisms and the profit motive have no place in our education system and restore to this and future generations the right to a quality university education unburdened by financial struggles and debt.
The profile of those studying at Scotland’s universities and colleges, and the way they are choosing to study, has changed dramatically in recent years. Currently funding for higher education assumes that full-time study is the norm and part-time is an exception. In fact part-time students represent 39% of students in higher education and have to pay up front fees for their study. We would ensure parity of treatment for part-time students.
A vote for Solidarity is a vote for university education free at the point of need; for an end to tuition fees and student debt; for a decent living grant for all students; for the educational future of Scotland.
Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party
Not mentioned.