[sleavey]

In Scotland, there are no tuition fees charged to anyone from the EU (except England and Wales - funny story - see bottom). I have a student loan from my studies, but it was only due to the need for living expenses, and the government insisted (legally) that my parents contributed to them based on their income. The loan's interest rate is capped at inflation (0% real term interest), so it is quite literally the best loan you'll ever get. You start to pay it off after you reach a certain income level (£15k/year, I think), paying something like 4% of your income towards the loan, and if after a fixed amount of time you have not paid it off (because you never earned enough) then the loan is written off.

People here are frequently warned of the silliness of paying off their student loans early. If you get any kind of loan with interest above inflation (which is basically all of them), it would make more sense to pay that off before the student loan.

EU law says universities must charge foreign EU nationals the same rate as they charge locals. There is a loophole in that this does not apply to the "home nations" within the UK, so Scottish universities (and English and Welsh return) can charge the other home nations' students whatever they like.

[wbillingsley]

Out of interest, what was the Scottish universities' plan if the independence referendum had succeeded (in which case EU law would have prevented them from charging or discriminating against English students, and suddenly England's 10-times-bigger population would have had a £9,000 per year incentive to go to Scotland for uni...)

[sleavey]

The vast majority of the big money comes from non-EU citizens studying in Scotland, who get charged double, triple or even more than English students, especially for subjects with good job prospects like business, law and medicine. I imagine they would have increased non-EU places at the expense of EU places to compensate. There was an idea to allow foreign nationals to stay much longer after finishing their degree in order to work and gain experience, which would have made studying in an independent Scotland more attractive.