ENGLISH students are applying to Scottish universities in record numbers to try to avoid top-up tuition fees south of the Border.
Figures released yesterday by the university admissions body UCAS showed that almost 29,000 applications to Scottish universities had been received from England - a rise of 17 per cent on the same time last year.
Experts blamed the introduction o
f top-up fees, which will allow English universities to charge students £3,000 a year from 2006.
It has been claimed that the rise in applications from England could result in Scottish students being squeezed out.
A spokesman for the umbrella body Universities Scotland said: "On the one hand it is simplistic to say it is just down to top-up fees, but there is no doubt that is the major reason.
"Numbers were going down until two years ago and then all of a sudden they started going through the roof, so what else has changed in that time apart from the government’s plans to introduce top-up fees in England?"
Scotland’s colleges need to spend almost half a billion pounds to bring their buildings up to modern standards, it emerged yesterday.
The figure was revealed as the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) announced that £66 million had been earmarked to be spent on college buildings in 2005-6 - an increase of £28 million on last year.
A total of £241 million will be spent on colleges over the next three years - but the SFEFC said that would go only half way towards bringing buildings and equipment up to the required standard.
