By Grant Smith, education reporter

ST ANDREWS University students have rejected a proposal by their principal to introduce a graduate tax to help fund higher education.

Dr Brian Lang suggested that such a tax would have “significant advantages” and would help to counter concerns about student debt that discouraged some people from seeking a degree.

However, the students’ association at St Andrews has told the Scottish Government that while it agrees greater financial resources are needed, it is worried that graduates might leave the country rather than pay up.

It was responding to a consultation on the abolition of the graduate endowment fee, a £2000 charge levied on Scottish students after they left university and widely regarded as being tuition fees by the back door.

The money raised was used to fund bursaries, but education secretary Fiona Hyslop announced in June that the fee would be scrapped and the bursaries paid for out of the government’s budget instead.

Steve Savage, director of representation at St Andrew’s students’ association, has written to ministers in support of ending what he called “a stealth tax on students.”

But he said this was only one part of the puzzle of how to fund higher education and ensure universities are able to attract “the best and brightest minds” whatever their background.

“There isn’t a week that goes by without mention of student debt or the rising cost of being a student,” said Mr Savage.

A recent survey showed that many graduates accumulated debts of over £20,000 while studying.

“The important question to ask is how does this affect the decision-making process of school leavers thinking about the option of higher education?”

Additional funding was needed to ensure Scottish universities survived and prospered, he said, but the association “strongly believed that students’ wallets are not the solution to this.”

Mr Savage said, “The principal has spoken out in the media recently and suggested a graduation tax—a means for graduates to repay society for providing the taxes that got them through university.

“They are the graduates who will work in the skilled professions society needs. They are the next generation of doctors and lawyers, economists and teachers.

“Isn’t their service to society enough repayment for the education they have received? We believe that it is.”

The students’ association wants to see the Scottish Government work to end student debt and encourage more students from non-traditional backgrounds to go to university.

It is also calling for a review of university funding and for students to be “supported adequately at all times.”