Independence: Tertiary Education
Students, visas, and university funding
Professor John Briggs FRSGS, Professor of Geography, University of Glasgow
Professor Briggs is
Clerk to the Senate
of the University
of Glasgow, and is
a Vice-President of
the RSGS.
Scotland’s universities are
one of the country’s major
success stories. Scotland has
three universities in the world’s
top 100; given that there are
approximately 10,000 universities
worldwide, this means that we
have three universities in the
top 1% globally. Per head of
population, this puts Scotland as
a country at the top of the world
league. In addition, according to
Universities Scotland, the annual
economic impact of Scottish
universities on the economy now
stands at £6.7bn, and export
earnings from outside Scotland
generate some £1.3bn for the
Scottish economy.
Given the global reputation
of Scotland’s universities and
their financial importance to
the Scottish economy, it should
come as no surprise that the
sector takes
a very keen
interest in
the outcome
of the
independence
referendum,
although the
universities
themselves are taking no official
view of which outcome they
would prefer. Nonetheless, there
are three main areas of pressing
interest to the sector: student
visas; research council funding;
and the financial status of rest
of the UK (rUK) students in an
independent Scotland.
“For Scottish universities,
this produces a high
degree of [