SATISFACTION amongst students at Scottish universities is much higher than those attending institutions in England, according to a new survey.
Some 70 per cent of undergraduates at Scottish institutions - who don't pay tuition fees - believe they are receiving good or very good value for money compared with only 41 per cent in England where fees are typically £9,000 a year.
One-sixth of first and second-year students from the UK studying at institutions in England believed their course represented very poor or poor value for money in 2012 - and that figure has now risen to one-third.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, which conducted the survey, said: "The data suggest growing differences across the UK. Students in Scotland generally think they are getting good value for money.
"Meanwhile, in England, one-in-three students say they are getting poor value for money - nearly twice as high as before the £9,000 fees were introduced.
"In this election year, students should press all the political parties to say what they will do to encourage universities to offer world-class teaching alongside their world-class research."
The findings are part of the latest Student Academic Experience survey which questioned more than 15,000 full-time undergraduates about their university experiences. It found that the vast majority of students - some 86 per cent - are fairly or very satisfied with the overall quality of their course, but almost a third said they would definitely, or maybe, have chosen another course if they could pick again.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article