MINISTERS have hailed the latest increase in applications to Scottish universities as evidence of excellence in the sector and justification for its stance on tuition fees.
Total applications received by June 30 rose 6.1%, from 104,870 to 111,296 compared with the same period last year, admissions service Ucas said. Applications from candidates based in Scotland who want to remain in the country to study rose 1.2% to 42,201, the figures show.
Education Secretary Michael Russell said: "Scotland's universities have a reputation for excellence and today's figures show their appeal is as strong as ever."
Applications from England-based candidates to study in Scotland rose 14% to 28,860 and applications from Northern Ireland rose 16.2% to 6103. Welsh applications fell 2.5% to 867.
Overseas applications also rose, the figures show.
Kez Dugdale, Labour's education spokeswoman said: "These figures don't show whether we've been any more successful in encouraging children from the poorest backgrounds."
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