AMERICA is approaching a combined student debt amounting to one trillion dollars.

This disturbing fact was the starting point of a documentary film called Ivory Tower which I watched at a film festival screening at Glasgow University.

Made in 2014 by writer and director Andrew Rossi the film questions the value and purpose of higher education in an era when the price of attending college in the US has increased more than any other service.

The film was compelling for a number of reasons, not just because it managed to make the subject of higher education finance both human and interesting, but also because of its scope.

It not only looked at the traditional college model of education, but also explored a range of alternatives from start-ups for college drop-outs to a free rural college where students were expected to work on a ranch as well as carrying out their studies.

My first reaction was a sense of relief that the situation in Scotland is nowhere near as dire.

The fact the Scottish Government currently pays for the tuition of Scottish students studying in Scotland means individual debt levels here are nowhere near the levels of those leaving American colleges.

However, we know that debt levels amongst the poorest students are rising after the Scottish Government cut support grants and student loans to fund living expenses have nearly doubled in two years in Scotland, from £254m in 2013 to £467m this year.

In addition, an Auditor-General’s report on the Scottish Government accounts earlier this year showed one of its largest financial assets is student loans valued at £2,685 million.

There are other lessons to be learned for Scotland from Ivory Tower.

For one thing Scottish universities see themselves as competing for staff and students with universities across the globe, many of whom are able to lever in additional funding because the fees charged to students in fees are greater than the sums of money paid by the public purse for Scottish students.

So the funding of universities in Scotland is not only being judged by how much it actually costs to deliver courses, but by how much money universities here need to bring in in order to compete with fees inflation elsewhere.

And of course, despite the the SNP's policy of not charging tuition fees to Scottish students, universities here do charge fees of up to £9,000 a year to students from the rest of the UK and - even more to overseas students.

One of the most worrying aspects of the film was the way the funding system was shaping behaviours in the sector with parents at a recruiting event for one college being invited to part with their cash with almost evangelical zeal.

"Now is the time to be brave," a member of staff told one father who asked whether or not his daughter would get a job at the end of the course.

And the film concluded with a group of students holding a banner with the slogan "we are students not customers" with the underlying message that university study was seen of as more of a financial transaction than an exercise in academic progression.

The idea of the customer in Scottish education is already here too and one letter from an outraged parent to the principal of Edinburgh University a few weeks ago attests to that fact.

The letter took issue with the lack of organised study time in the final year of one student's course stating: "My daughter has just started her fourth and final year at Edinburgh University and when speaking with her yesterday she told me that this year, she only has 4 hours of teaching per week.

"If a school performed at this level I would never consider sending a child there and if the students only received four hours of teaching per week I suspect that very few parents would put up with it. So why should we accept an inferior product from your university?

"I have heard the specious argument that in the final year the students need to become more self-sufficient and independent to concentrate on their dissertation.

"If that is the case and you deliberately choose to reduce their teaching time, then why do you charge the same amount for each year? I am appalled and disgusted."

The customer in Scottish higher education is already here.