THE dangers of over-egging the pudding were apparent this week when a Scottish Conservative attempt to smear the SNP's flagship policy of free university tuition backfired.

When the party's education spokeswoman Liz Smith suggested the higher education sector "prefers" fee-paying students from England over publicly-funded students from Scotland there was a sharp riposte from Scotland's oldest university.

St Andrews University said it was "incorrect" and "irresponsible" to claim universities were being forced into "tough choices” between different categories of students when the reality was very different.

The exchange happened after figures collected by the Conservatives showed some of Scotland's ancient universities are increasingly targeting fee-paying students from England to boost their finances.

The universities of Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews have all given offers to a higher percentage of applicants from England compared to those from Scotland. The same is true of the universities of Stirling and Strathclyde.

But despite the difference in offer rates, Scottish universities still recruit far more students from Scotland than from south of the Border with 33,000 in 2015 compared to just 4,560 from England.

More importantly, as St Andrews pointed out, no English or overseas student could ever "displace" a Scottish student at a Scottish university because the numbers are determined by the government and protected by a strict upper and lower limit.

In fact, Scottish students are finding it increasingly difficult to secure a place at university north of the Border.

That has nothing to do with fee-paying students from England, but is instead happening because applications from Scottish students are increasing at a higher rate than available places.

Unfortunately, there is little information about who exactly is missing out and it has been difficult to identify any suitably-qualified applicants in recent years who have failed to secure a place at university, although popular courses at popular universities are always oversubscribed.

But that might be about to change. A report this week by Audit Scotland highlighted the Scottish Government’s drive to widen access to poorer students by adopting national targets on increasing the number of students from deprived areas as recommended by the Commission on Widening Access.

That will see students from the 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds representing 20 per cent of entrants to higher education by 2030.

In the last three years, the SNP has funded an expansion of the sector to ensure targets on access are matched with new places, but the scheme which allowed that to happen has now reached its conclusion without any sign it will be extended.

As Audit Scotland concluded, achieving the new targets without increasing funded places will mean fewer students from "less deprived" backgrounds being offered a university place.

It would be entirely legitimate to argue that, in a system which is so unfair at the moment, some rebalancing across the social divide would be welcome.

However, if Audit Scotland's warning comes to pass then future claims by opposition politicians that Scottish students are missing out on university because of SNP policies will not be so easily dismissed.