Every penny is not quite a prisoner in our higher education sector but resources are finite and they must be put to best effect to ensure that our universities can compete with the best in the world.

Competition extends to the sector in England, where the finances of institutions have been boosted by student tuition fees that do not apply in Scotland. We share the serious reservations about tuition fees and recognise that the Scottish Government and institutions themselves by their efforts have been able, more or less, to keep pace on funding.

Universities have been adept at recruiting a growing number of full-fee paying students from overseas and are increasingly turning to graduates to support their almae matres. It appears that completion fees are playing a growing part as a source of additional funding. As we report today, Scotland's universities have raised more than £10.5 million in the past five years in charges that students must pay before they can graduate. The National Union of Students has accused university chiefs of holding students to ransom because they cannot obtain their degree without paying the fee.

Universities say the fee helps with such matters as producing degree certificates and the cost of administration for letters and joining an institution's General Council, membership of which can include discounts for graduates. Families and graduands themselves want the graduation ceremony to be a memorable occasion in which all can take pride. If the fee helps towards the cost universities bear for organising ceremonies, that is all well and good. But there are aspects of the completion fee policy that raise some concerns.

First, not all universities impose a graduation fee. Edinburgh, for example, stopped the charge some two years ago, saying fee income from the rest of the UK and a desire to deliver the best in alumni relations had resulted in the change.

Secondly, the charge is not uniform across Scotland. The University of Glasgow, for instance, has a charge of £60 for compulsory membership of the General Council. Heriot Watt charges £45 while the fee at St Andrews and Stirling is £50. Is the graduation experience different where the fee varies? And what does the fact Edinburgh does not make a charge tell us about the quality of ceremonies there? We should recall that, earlier this week, Edinburgh came fourth in Britain in the rankings for university research so it has little to worry about in terms of reputation.

Thirdly, it would appear that graduation fees have risen markedly in the past couple of years. According to Universities Scotland, the average cost of a completion fee was £32 for each student in 2012/13. At present, fees of up to £60 are being charged. To be fair, the comparison is not like-for-like and, in Glasgow's case, it says surplus goes into funds to support students and academics.

Although we have avoided the iniquity of tuition fees, students are still building up significant debt while studying for their degrees and there would be nothing worse than a situation where an undergraduate could not graduate for want of a fee that, the evidence suggests, is rising at institutions that impose the charge. Universities must be smart at securing funding but we need to be certain that the fee is being used for what is says on the tin. If there is to be a fee, why is it not uniform? Can there be uniformity when our biggest, and arguably our most successful universities, does not impose it?