[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.