EDUCATION in Scotland is distinct from elsewhere in the United Kingdom, as it has been for centuries. As far back as 1469, well before Scotland became part of Great Britain, the Scottish parliament was passing laws on the schooling of the sons of noblemen. Nowadays children in Scotland often start primary school later than their counterparts south of the border. They sit university entrance exams that are different to those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland ("Highers" instead of "A-levels"). Degree courses span four years rather than three. And a university education in Scotland is free to Scottish students, whereas English students studying in England will soon pay £9,000 ($14,500) a year for the priviledge.
Scottish university students differ from their English counterparts in another, surprising way: they are particularly posh. What makes this puzzling is that just 4.3% of schoolchildren in Scotland attend private schools, compared to 7% in England. Yet the proportion of privately educated students in universities in Scotland is almost identical to that in England: 8.7% and 8.8%, respectively. Moreover the proportion of university students who come from the lower social classes is far lower in Scotland than in England: 27.9% compared to 31.4%, according to data published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency on March 29th. One explanation is that, inspired by Prince William's decision to study at St Andrews University, posh English students are enrolling in Scottish universities. But it seems inadequate to have distorted the figures so strikingly. Any suggestions?
Readers' comments
The Economist welcomes your views. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers. Review our comments policy.
Sort:
Actually if you have ever walked into a class at Edinburgh, and seen the number of English students, this isn't so hard to believe. Edinburgh and St.Andrews especially have tags as 'home of the oxbridge rejects' and 'yah-rah land'.
One friend at Edinburgh told me matter of factly that she and her brother had both found it annoying because the class lecturer referred to English holidays instead of Scottish holidays when speaking to the class (the amjority of which were English students).
The Scots have always been more feudal and conservative than the English, and the poverty there was far greater before the Union. Further, the Scottish nibs have had an easier time keeping the lower classes in their place.
I am Scottish and studied at Edinburgh University, though it often felt like I was one of the few who did. From quite a large comprehensive high school in Fife there were only 5 people from my year at that university. Many of my classmates at university were educated privately, though (and I am aware this is fairly anecdotal) most of them, it seemed, were from the large number of English students who opted to study in Scotland.
Frankly more needs to be done to encourage those young Scots from working class backgrounds who are academic enough to go to university to actually go, whilst making sure that other avenues for advancement -like apprenticeships - are not scoffed at. Frankly, a plumber can earn far more than most graduates, especially those with a degree in a more 'fluffy' area of academia.
It's hardly surprising more Scots stay in Scotland than go to England to study. I studied at Edinburgh for free, then was asked (for a course I'd got onto) for the best part of £40,000 for two years at Oxford University.
Again, anecdotal, but being asked by one of the faculty at your new university if you were from 'the disadvantaged schools programme' in your first week, upon mentioning that you were from Kirkcaldy, shows the general ethos. Unfortunately. Something quite telling alluded to in this article.
slight mistake in previous post corrected!
2007 - 2011 New Undergraduates to UK universities by domicile!
England
2011 = 368,316, of which 3,286 (0.89%) elected to study in scotland
2010 = 360,208, of which 3,547 (0.98%) elected to study in scotland
2009 = 360,236, of which 4,747 (1.32%) elected to study in scotland
2008 = 343,608, of which 4,453 (1.30%) elected to study in scotland
2007 = 306,959, of which 3,814 (1.24%) elected to study in scotland
scotland
2011 = 30,800, of which 1,639 (5.32%) elected to study in England
2010 = 32,248, of which 1,792 (5.56%) elected to study in England
2009 = 31,030, of which 1,716 (5.53%) elected to study in England
2008 = 29,391, of which 1,774 (6.04%) elected to study in England
2007 = 27,218, of which 1,754 (6.44%) elected to study in England
http://www.ucas.ac.uk/about_us/media_enquiries/media_releases/
Considering the population of Scotland is roughly 5 million and the population of England is a whopping 50 million, the apparently tiny percentage of English studets in Scotland is still a heck of a lot larger than the 5% of Scottish students studying in England - which will include students who go to Oxbridge and LSE as well.
Put it into perspective the whole population of Scotland is smaller than that of greater London alone and Glasgow I believe is the UK's third largest city.
Considering the population of Scotland is roughly 5 million and the population of England is a whopping 50 million, the apparently tiny percentage of English studets in Scotland is still a heck of a lot larger than the 5% of Scottish students studying in England - which will include students who go to Oxbridge and LSE as well.
Put it into perspective the whole population of Scotland is smaller than that of greater London alone and Glasgow I believe is the UK's third largest city.
And of course Scottish courses tend to last 4 years instead of 3! Why would English students want to repeat what they probably covered at A-level? They have the option of going straight into second year but who would wnat to do that and miss out on forming friends etc in first year?
Traditionally Scottish students went to uni at 16/17 with their pre uni exams highers and did an extra year at uni.
Compare this to England where students spend one less at uni and extra year at school and (so entry 17/18 years of age?), and thus have harder pre-uni exams viz A levels.
Although Scottish students can stay on for an extra year and get the Advanced Higher, nonetheless Scottish universities still sit the bar at higher level. Although Advanced Highers can skip you into second year, as mentioned above, there are many reasons in terms of fitting in, why students would opt to spend the extra year at uni anyway.
5% of scottish domiciled new udergraduates elect to study in England , less than 1% of England domiciled new undergraduates elect to study in scotland.
Yeah, but when England has a population of 52m and Scotland has 5m, I think the percentages don't tell a great deal. I was surprised it was that high- the year I drew my figures from it was around two point something for Scots.
UCAS notes here http://www.ucas.ac.uk/about_us/media_enquiries/media_releases/2012/20120130 that the number of applications made by Scots to study in England is less than a sixth of the figure for English applicants to study in Scotland. In real terms, over 20,000 more English applications are made in Scotland than Scottish applications in England. As the fees situation sets in, I'd expect that gap to get bigger.
There's also the issue of the fact that a small but significant proportion of Scots take A-Levels where I don't know of any English taking Scottish Highers, and the 'Oxbridge' effect whereby because they're widely regarded amongst the top few universities in the world, they'd be a factor in attracting a relatively higher proportion (if not absolute number) of students one way rather than the other. Finally, if you're English, there are plenty of good reasons to come to study in Scotland- but we cannot ignore the fact that applicants will have to overlook a great many good and very good institutions with similar entry standards close by in order to pick a Scottish institution potentially hundreds of miles away. I'm not that surprised 99% of English students stay in England, but the 1% (25,000 people) is still equivalent almost a tenth of the total number of all students enrolled at Scottish universities.
2011 New Undergraduates to UK universities by domicile!
368,316 England, of which 3,286 (0.89%) elected to study in scotland
30,800 scotland, of which 1,774 (5.32%) elected to study in England
http://www.ucas.co.uk/about_us/media_enquiries/media_releases/2011/151211
The extra year of study entailed in a scottish degree might be more likely to put-off state school students in the rest of the UK, than non-scots independent school students, because it makes university attendance 33% more expensive, and a less wealthy family may be less willing or able to support the extra expense.
"They sit university entrance exams that are different to those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland ("Highers" instead of "A-levels")."
This could explain things. It's much easier for an English student to meet the matriculation requirements of a Scottish University than for a Scottish student to meet the matriculation requirements of an English University. This is the main reason so few Scottish students go to English Universities. Although the tuition fees charged by English Universities are of course a disincentive the fact that it is very difficult to meet the admission requirements is more important.
If you look at the performance tables for Scottish comprehensives you will find the only target for Advanced Highers is a pass in one subject. You actually need two Advanced Highers to meet the basic matriculation requirements for an English University and three at approaching A-grade to get admitted to a Russell group university.
The explanation is probably that English private school pupils find it much easier to get into Scottish Universities than Scottish ones into English Universities.
It's not the whole story, but it's certainly part of it, yes. With the fees system and the different educational requirements, it's actually bloody hard and expensive for a Scot to think about attending a good English university let alone the best. State-schooled students needing to pass three advanced highers can forget it: most schools won't even let you sit them! With the costs and trouble involved- it's not surprising they stay at home and pick Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, wherever if the option is between there and just about anywhere outside of Oxford or Cambridge. I think, of over 100,000 school leavers a couple of years ago, under 1,000 took up a place in England- most of them were from private schools.
On the other hand, the extra year (designed to compensate for leaving school with highers in 5th year) means the entry to good universities in Scotland is lower in first year than a similar university in England- BCC at Aberdeen a couple of years ago- placing four years at a 500 year old institution at the same price as a former polytechnic.
...and to clarify I should point out that plenty of schools will allow you to sit some advanced highers, but all of the state schools in my LEA not that long ago limited students to two maximum (in a narrow range of subjects), thereby placing another hurdle to anyone that was still thinking about leaving the country, in that they had to enrol in a college and pay to take courses at night. Unsurprisingly, I've only ever met one who did in eight years- and he stayed in Scotland anyway.
The 'low' I mentioned was for English A-level applicants. At Edinburgh and Glasgow, the level required for entry from Scotland was AAAA at first sitting, meaning the Scots were top 5% of their graduating class. That probably isn't anything like the case of most of those coming to the country from elsewhere.
CM986, I agree with your analysis. To pick up on your comments regarding Oxbridge and the prospects for Scots from state-schools - my experience has been that Cambridge makes some allowance during the interview process that Scottish applicants will not have covered the same coursework as A-level students while Oxford does not. This makes the barrier for entry to Oxford particularly (and unfairly in my view) high for Scottish state school pupils.
I know of a few Scots at Oxford for undergraduate- and their stories differed. Some took A-levels, some took several advanced highers. I only know of two that came through the state system though. They're only a small part of the problem though and we shouldn't concentrate just on Oxford/Cambridge (even though those that do leave Scotland only usually do so if they've an offer from one of those two)- asking someone in a Scottish state school to get AAB in advanced highers for somewhere like Manchester is much, much, more arduous than AAB in A-level. Hence why 11% of students get AAA or better in England, but the corresponding top grade of 5As at higher (nevermind advanced higher) is much lower- about 3%. Throw into the mix moving far away and spending much more money, and I'm not at all surprised under 1% of school leavers and only a couple of percent of university entrants went south, and I suspect most of them were from fee-paying schools.
This certainly isn't the case the other way around, where Scottish offers, if you fancy four years rather than three, is pretty low given the standard of the university. Edinburgh were pitching at BBB offers at A-level not so long ago. A BBB institution in England is Oxford Brookes- a former polytechnic. To get back to the point of the article, this must be causing a big skew as the influx is pretty much one way traffic, so the headline figures are undoubtedly misleading.
The other crucial to reiterate is that because of this disparity, you will find the Scots from the very top of their school classes in Scottish universities- though in many cases, especially in some institutions, mixed alongside those with mediocre grades from English (often public) schools. Not that I'd blame them for a second for making that choice- the system favours their chances of a place at a top tier institution (and there are at least three or four of them in Scotland) at the price well below the corresponding institutions in England.
A simple explanation for the two latter statistics could simply be there are many more universities in England, previously called polytechnics, and non-Etonian Scots are going there.
As for the first, did you know how many Scots it takes to change a lightbulb?
None - it's cheaper to sit in the dark. ;-)
Come to think of it, that could be why the Scots are going to the polys too...
Firstly, I am Scottish and I graduated from St Andrews in 2011. I started school when I was 4, as does everyone I know in Scotland. Which is the same age in England, is it not? Secondly,I grew up in Edinburgh and went to a private school. There is a higher percentage of kids at private schools in Edinburgh than in any other city. Thirdly, only a third of students at St Andrews were Scottish, most were either English or American. Lots of English students chose to go there because a) Prince William went there but mostly b) it's one of the best universities in the UK.
Indeed, yes. I graduated from St. Andrews in 1983 and at that time there were also lots of English students.
Wow, I did not realise that 'posh' had become an official classification term...
No wonder the Scottish have so many grudges against the English with such utter waffle.
In response to your request for suggestions, you can get some further data with which to analyse the impact of the cross border flows from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) - see http://www.sfc.ac.uk/statistics/higher_education_statistics/HE_performan...
The SFC stats look only at Scots-domiciled students at Scottish universities. These figures put the equivalent social class measure refered to above at 29.62%, closer to that in England and supporting the hypothesis that the significant number of entrants from elsewhere in the UK are disproportionately drawn from more wealthy backgrounds. Given previous DfES and other work which has demonstrated that the more deprived in society are more likely to study closer to home this is perhaps unsuprising given the distance of the vast majority of English population centres from Scotland.
In addition to the "Kate & Wills effect" explaining demand ffor Scottish HE in the rest of the UK there is also the fact that Scot's universities offer a high quality education and UK stats show their graduates are more likely to be employed and earn a higher salary six months after graduation than those in other parts of the UK (http://www.scotsman.com/news/scots-graduates-more-likely-to-get-job-and-...) - which may be relevant in terms of incentives.
In addition to the structural differences in the economy Anylies_ refers to there are sugnificant structural differences in the post-compulsory educational systems which may be relevant. The four year degree is the most well known element of this, but more likely to be of relevance is the role of colleges in delivering HE in Scotland. This from Universities UK's 'Patterns' report
"The proportion of part-time higher education provision found in further education institutions varies amongst the countries of the UK, with 9.5 per cent of part-time provision in England found in further education institutions compared to 2.1 per cent in Wales, 25.4 per cent in Scotland and 30.9 per cent in Northern Ireland."
'PATTERNS AND TRENDS IN UK HIGHER EDUCATION 2011' - Universities UK
Delivered locally in communities across Scotland and often with an initial committment of just one year, one could speculate that the higher proportion of such provision in Scotland may also have an effect on the university based participation of relatively deprived sections of society. Research demonstrates such groups may see barriers in distance and anticipated living cost debt - participation at a local college may therefore appeal.
For anyone who's really keen you can look at overall Scottish HE participation, the social mix of participants and comparisons to similar in England on pages 13 to 18 of the SFC publication 'Participation Rates for Entrants to Scottish Higher Education'.
How about instead of the complete crap, only an outsider could have come up with that explanation about Prince William nonsense, We look at the socio-economic history of Scotland vs England (Sorry this is the ECONOMIST correct?) Proportionally, more Scottish youth can work in technical/labor jobs right out of their secondary schools due to availability, whereas in the large English cities, (also lets not downplay the focus of London as an Economic and Financial hub) these types of jobs have been gone for quite some time/ replaced much quicker than in Scotland (Glenrothes/Dunfermline vs. Preston). Publicly educated students in Scotland are more likely to work and continue to work in less skilled jobs because those are the ones most available to them. I think if you look at a general trend, you would see that 27.9 is a highpoint on an upward trending graph.
The social mobility point can be put down to something pretty simple.
Fees don't affect whether or not people go to University. Two other things do.
1. The nature of the fees system - in this case, the English system doesn't actually deter people en-masse because they only pay back the up-front government support once they've graduated and are earning and even then pay in-line with earnings. Under the new system, most will even have their "loan" written off after 30 years, leading to it being a de facto graduate tax. If fees were up-front you'd see a huge dip from those from poorer backgrounds who simply don't have that kind of capital.
2. Maintenance payments. The single biggest deterrent to going to University is the cost of living. Students, depending on their course, are extremely unlikely to be able to hold down a full-time job and will find it difficult to hold down a significant part-time job around their studies. Despite this, they still have the same bills and living costs as anyone else unless they stay at home. Attempts have been made to mitigate this through the student loan and grant system, which help students to meet their rent, bills and other essentials, but it doesn't meet the full cost. In England the maintenance payments can be as much as 40% higher than they are in Scotland. Even allowing for variability in living costs by region, English students generally get better up-front support than their Scottish compatriots. If you want to improve social mobility and access to University, the message is clear: the fees don't matter; the maintenance support does.
Possibly this is due to economics.
When one evaluates the costs and benefits of going to University, one must examine the opportunity costs.
For example, where I am from, Alberta, in Canada, opportunities for low-educated workers are enormous. (Anecdotally, there are stories of people fresh out of High school starting a Carpentry apprenticeships, and becoming foremen after only 1 and a half years of the 4 year apprenticeship.) As a result, the High school graduation rate is lower in Alberta than it is elsewhere in Canada (there are other reasons for this, like Alberta schools are more academically rigorous than those in other parts of the country: Queen's University (in Ontario) will add 10% onto any Alberta grade against an Ontario grade for some programs of study)
As a result, I would like to have a look at what types of opportunities are available for those that DO NOT go to university in Scotland and in England to make this comparson. Those who would go to university anyways (people coming from high-income households) would likely continue to go to university, however those on the fence about going to university (i.e. people at the low end of the income spectrum) may decide against going to University if they are able to get a well-paying job offer on an offshore rig etc.
Having just gone through the university application procedure I (being state school educated) was put off by applying to universities in Scotland because of the different emphasis of the application procedure.
Currently the Scottish system requires you to study 3 subjects in your first year that aren't intrinsically linked. I was studying the most relevant subjects to my course and excelled in them at both GCSE and A-Level. So as I had underperformed at other subjects at GCSE this meant I didn't have the breadth required for a Scottish university. The application procedure seemed to be relatively tick box, I was told that because I didn't get 6A*s at GCSE it was unlikely I would be accepted despite being predicted 4A*s at A-Level. Speaking to the relevant faculty members they encouraged me to apply but warned that as applications were dealt with on a university wide basis I'd be less likely to get in. In the end I applied only to English universities.
I would posit that private schools provide relatively more breadth (as opposed to depth) across the board which suits the Scottish system better.
As a current St Andrews student my experience is that the vast majority of state school students here are from Scotland. Almost all of the English, American or EU students (of which there are many) went to independent schools. I'd imagine that this would be the case at Edinburgh as well.
I imagine that people from state schools are less able to go very far afield for university owing to the costs involved. Whereas independently educated students are more likely to be able to afford the travel and expense of living in another part of the country. My experience of the less "posh" Glasgow universities is that they tend to have more students from the city and surrounding areas than St Andrews and Edinburgh.
I think that influx from English private schools is likely to account for much of the difference, considering that in the list of universities that traditionally attract a private school set (Oxbridge, UCL, LSE, KCL, ICL, Durham, Warwick, Edinburgh and St Andrews) Scotland is disproportionately represented.
St Andrews is an odd example anyway in the sense that it's in a small town with no significant catchment area- it's never really been on the radar for Scottish applicants at any point in the last fifty years, Scots still made up a small proportion of the place when they were handing out full study grants to go wherever one wanted! Glasgow, on the other hand, sits at the middle of one of the UK's largest urban areas with nearly 50% of the Scottish population within a few dozen miles, so it does have a different position within the education sector. It's still disproportionately 'elite', but in a far smaller way to St Andrews: the percentage of privately educated students there are still four times the Scottish average and five times the West/Central average, it has comfortably more international students and people living on campus away from their parents than anywhere except Edinburgh, and the proportion of students from less well off backgrounds is the third lowest in the country. In these respects, it could probably do a lot more of what UWS, Strathclyde and Caledonian do at taking a more representative mix of their surrounding area. It really depends on who your comparison is with, and I'd argue the comparison with St Andrews is less relevant than the comparison with another university that serves as the go-to point for much of the surrounding urban area.
KCL is actually much the same in this respect- it has a high rate of students from poorer backgrounds, and the differences between there and not just Glasgow but Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and so on is relatively small. Edinburgh has always been a bit of the odd one out: the reputation of the city has attracted people north for a long time (ask the average person in London, they'll think of a council housing estate in Easterhouse as 'Glasgow' and the castle and one street near it as 'Edinburgh'- neither of them are representative of what it's like to work or study there, some places out of sight and mind have suffered from a reputation that hasn't changed for 40 years despite the city being unrecognisable from that point), but the fact remains to an extent that it's a large university in a relatively small and saturated urban area- 750,000 people (against 2m in the West) are served by four universities, so again the need for it to serve as the main provider of education for the people is less pressing now than it was fifty years ago.
I've been lucky to have studied in a leading private US institution, one half of Oxbridge, and one of the places we've just mentioned, and taught in two of them with one 'new' university thrown into the bargain. I think you're onto something with suggesting it's the non-Scots that are skewing the figures. I don't think the approach taken here (and elsewhere) works- if it turns out that it's the influx from one country to another that's skewing the figures, and if it is indeed the poorer Scots who can't afford to move onto campus and integrate with the university that are feeling shunned by the sector or dropping out in their droves, then a policy-based answer becomes clearer. Until then, a Scotland vs England comparison is pretty futile.
"Er, no. The Barnett Formula isn't that generous. It doles out more or less the same money to England and Scotland per head of population".
Er, no! And denying the unfair generosity to the Scots of this long discredited formula adds insult to injury - you take English taxpayers' money without (at least) expressing appreciation (or apology) for our sacrifice.
I don't take English taxpayers' money. But don't let my lack of apology - or indeed reality - get in the way of a warm sense of grievance.
Inaccurate, you have been reading to much Daily Mail. The official figures show that the money flow is north to south(not much though). So the unfair generosity that you posit is actually Scotland supporting England. Also, the biggest subsidy addict is London(check the official figures again).
If you think an average expenditure per head is enough to prove that the Scots are getting a sweet deal from England, then you need to read some more economics. You're in the right place.
If you look at the HMRC figures, Scotland as a region of the UK has a higher proportion of taxpayers relative to the population and a higher income tax yield per head than ANY other area outside of London & the South East (in other words, more people work and contribute to the government). So, if anything, London skews everything- not England subsidising Scotland. The £12 billion the 2.8m taxpayers there pay is demonstrably higher than the midlands (2.8m paying 11bil) and significantly higher per head than the North East, South West, or anywhere else for that matter, except the huge tax yield per head of London, where many headquarters are based.
Secondly, a country that is predominantly rural apart from 3-4 urban areas and only one particularly large one, it costs more to provide services- whole roads to communities that cost the same as a motorway, but are only used by a fraction of the people. 10 hospitals with 50 beds cost more than one with 500.
Thirdly, in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the country with just one twelfth of the population has two of the seven largest cities, two of the ten largest urban areas, two of the five largest tourist destinations, the second and third highest GDP per capita, the third and seventh largest economies, the second and fourth largest financial sectors and amongst the highest proportion of graduates in the local workforce. Aberdeen is also the best performing medium sized city in the country- growing through the recession.
England (and I say this having lived and worked in both countries and now being in neither) only looks good when London's position as a world centre is in the equation- for the rest of the country (and I don't think having London in your borders really helps people in Sunderland sleep at night) Scotland is more than a match for similar sized settlements.
Can someone complete this set of statistics?
1. Private schools educate 7% of English schoolchildren.
2. Private schools educate 8.8% of English schoolchildren who go on to attend university of some kind.
3. Private schools educate what percentage of English schoolchildren who are admitted to Oxford and Cambridge, and allowed to become members of The Establishment??
As a graduate of Edinburgh back when we still got grants for living costs I can confirm that certain faculties tended to have a lot of English public school students.
The population of Scotland is around a tenth of the population of the UK as a whole so it doesn't take that many English students travelling North of the Border to make a difference.
Looking at this from the US, all I can say is, "What a tremendous bargain!" I live in the state of New York (not in NYC, upstate). Here even a public university will set one back $21,120 if you live on campus, and $30,170 if you're not a NY resident. The private university here in our city, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, costs $41,600 PER YEAR, regardless of state or nation of citizenship.
The $41,6000 is for tuition only, and doesn't include room and board, books, fees and other personal expenses. By the time you're done, it will cost about $60,000/yr.