Are there university tuition fees in Scotland?
In the SNP’s Scottish election leaflet, First Minister and party leader John Swinney claimed there was “no university tuition fees in Scotland”.
But that’s not entirely correct. Although many Scottish undergraduates have their degrees paid for, university tuition fees must be paid by some other students, including those taking postgraduate degrees.
The Scottish Government will cover the costs of primarily undergraduate study for up to five years for full-time students who normally reside in Scotland and study in Scotland. This means that these eligible students do not have to pay tuition fees.
Undergraduate tuition fees for students in Scotland are typically £1,820 per year. Students must apply annually to the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS), the Scottish Government’s executive agency that supports students in higher education with information and funding, to have these fees paid directly to universities. SAAS also covers the cost of the Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) for eligible students and provides students with loans for tuition fees and living expenses.
However, other types of students and degrees also have tuition fees in Scotland. For example, people who earn a second degree or repeat a year for more than a year will pay a fee.
Graduate students must also pay tuition, but some students may have access to grants, scholarships, or funding through other organizations.
Also, people moving to Scotland from other UK countries or other countries to study a first undergraduate degree are not eligible for free tuition fees.
Around 56% of postgraduate students in Scotland were paying tuition fees in the 2023/24 academic year, and 12% of national and undergraduate tertiary students were paying tuition fees, according to research commissioned by the Scottish Government.
When we asked the SNP about this claim, they responded: “The SNP is proud to have scrapped Labour’s tuition fees, meaning Scotland is the only region of the UK where undergraduates can study at university without paying fees.”
Video of voters on the street was generated by AI
Ahead of May 7 parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales and local elections in England, a video has been shared on Facebook showing fake people as real voters.
The clip, which appears to have been deleted after being fact-checked by Full Fact, shows the presenter talking to random people on the street about who they will vote for, with all but one person saying “Reform Britain”, who said “Restore”.
However, the footage was actually generated by AI.
We found that both the video and audio elements of the footage contained SynthID, an invisible watermark that appears on content created or modified by Google’s AI tools.
There were also a number of other clues that the video should be viewed with suspicion, including strange writing on a bus stop at one point, the number 73 bus’s destination simply listed as “London,” and the unlikely name of a store at the end of the video, “Local Shop.”
Posts like this, shared before Election Day without any indication that they were created by AI, can mislead voters about what is true and undermine democracy. Before sharing content you see online, it’s important to consider whether you can trust it. Our Full Fact toolkit and guide to identifying AI media can help you do this.
