Student Finance In Scotland

arsenalbarnie

GothicStirling wrote: »

Edinburgh is actually world no.40. (it made me remove the link as new user, but will check it out)

As for house prices, the system is different in Scotland. There are fixed house prices. Then there is a silent bidding process where the potential buyer places a bid at a certain percentage above the asking price, the best bid wins.

Edinburgh isn't a cheap place to live and you have to be willing to live with heavy tourism. That's why I love Stirling, we only have tourist over the summer, Edinburgh is a 24/7 situation. There is a reason why all the high fliers live out in Stirlingshire and commute to their jobs in Glasgow and Edinburgh. My neighbours have very good jobs with RBS in Edinburgh, but wouldn't dream of living there.

Thanks for that. Must have been looking at a different league table to you. I must plan a holiday to Scotland, but facts are that I could live in a castle compared to what property prices are where I live, maybe not a castle in Edinburgh but somewhere a bit quieter lol and what lovely scenery. Mind you I live in the Cotswolds and its pretty picturesque here too.:)

arsenalbarnie

GothicStirling wrote: »

Forgot to mention that the jobs market is absolutely crap up here at the moment too.

I don't have to worry about a job (at the moment) as am a landlord but am a landlord to students so with all these fees going up, am worried that we may struggle to fill our houses if the student population falls, but will worry about that if it happens. I suppose I could always sell everything buy a mansion and claim benefits or keep my income below grant threshold,;) but have too much of a conscience to do that.:o My kids would all get grants, but still a hefty tuition fee bill to pay. Ho hum, at least the sun is shining here!

The_One_Who

arsenalbarnie wrote: »

I think the current system is unfair to English students and wish we were Welsh or Scottish!

I think the current system is unfair in that the Scottish school system all but confines most Scots to university study in Scotland, unless they are lucky enough to go to a very good state school that happens to offer the Advanced Highers in the subjects you need. But heyho, life isn't fair.

arsenalbarnie

The_One_Who wrote: »

I think the current system is unfair in that the Scottish school system all but confines most Scots to university study in Scotland, unless they are lucky enough to go to a very good state school that happens to offer the Advanced Highers in the subjects you need. But heyho, life isn't fair.[/QUOTe

No you're right there, life isn't fair, you just have to try to find ways round it. Advanced Highers sound very useful and a good idea, shame we don't have them in England. Don't universities outside of Scotland consider the Highers equivalent to A levels?

GothicStirling

arsenalbarnie wrote: »

The_One_Who wrote: »

I think the current system is unfair in that the Scottish school system all but confines most Scots to university study in Scotland, unless they are lucky enough to go to a very good state school that happens to offer the Advanced Highers in the subjects you need. But heyho, life isn't fair.[/QUOTe

No you're right there, life isn't fair, you just have to try to find ways round it. Advanced Highers sound very useful and a good idea, shame we don't have them in England. Don't universities outside of Scotland consider the Highers equivalent to A levels?

Depends who you talk to!

Most Scottish kids only do highers, and not advanced highers so they enter Scottish Universities aged 17. This means they only have an AS standard, and this is why Scottish degrees take 4 years and not three. It's a 'catch up year.' Most Universities will class A-levels as a higher qualification [the only one I've came across as discriminating against A-levels is Glasgow.]

I've been around Scottish students and I've had some raging arguments about this. The myth seems to be that A-level students need to catch up with the Scottish. They don't, and after four years there is a distinct difference between those who have A-levels and those with Highers.

For a Scottish student to access an English university they must have Advanced Highers.

The_One_Who

arsenalbarnie wrote: »

No you're right there, life isn't fair, you just have to try to find ways round it. Advanced Highers sound very useful and a good idea, shame we don't have them in England. Don't universities outside of Scotland consider the Highers equivalent to A levels?

To simplify things a bit, a Higher is slightly superior (and I think harder?) to an AS level and an AH is superior to an A level. Scots will do several Highers, doing five or six in one year is not uncommon. I'm sure I read that there are a lower percentage of pupils in Scotland getting 5 As at Higher than there are English and Welsh pupils getting 3As at A Level.

Going back a few years now, but my school (a pretty crap state school) would only offer AHs on the condition that seven or more pupils were doing one, which ruled out a lot. It simply was not economical or even possible for the school to timetable it otherwise. Some subjects did allow you to teach yourself, if you wanted to, but with others it wouldn't be possible. Some local areas are trying to group their resources so that one school can offer AH maths whilst another does the chemistry, for example. But this requires a lot of extra money (for transport between schools) from the local authorities, and it eats into the school day quite a lot as well.

Some universities do consider Highers, although most of the ones I looked at were asking for AHs as well. AHs are sort of equivalent to a first-year-level in a Scottish university. A Scot going to an English university with only a Higher-level knowledge would really feel the jump, never mind the financial pinch with maintenance help being much lower up here.

AnnBar

The_One_Who wrote: »

I'm sure I read that there are a lower percentage of pupils in Scotland getting 5 As at Higher than there are English and Welsh pupils getting 3As at A Level.

The figures that I have seen quoted is that about 10% of A level pupils will get 3As and less than 3% of higher pupils will get 5As.

GothicStirling

The_One_Who wrote: »

To simplify things a bit, a Higher is slightly superior (and I think harder?) to an AS level and an AH is superior to an A level.

I'm going to dispute that. My experience with university admissions is that A-levels are preferred over Highers.

My experience of teaching is that students who have taken A-levels do better at university level too. Maybe that has something to do with English students being awarded higher maintainance than SAAS do, and don't need to work so many hours.

The_One_Who

GothicStirling wrote: »

I'm going to dispute that. My experience with university admissions is that A-levels are preferred over Highers.

My experience of teaching is that students who have taken A-levels do better at university level too. Maybe that has something to do with English students being awarded higher maintainance than SAAS do.

I think superior was the wrong word to use. Perhaps harder (although that is of course relative) would have been better. Or simply of a higher level, like an AS Level is higher than a GCSE. If that makes sense.

There are problems with both educational systems though. For me, the main one being that a lot of very good school pupils are barred from leaving Scotland, simply because their school did not offer the required qualification. I haven't looked abroad, so I don't know the international view of Scottish Highers.

Fiddlestick

arsenalbarnie wrote: »

I think the current system is unfair to English students and wish we were Welsh or Scottish!

It's not unfair at all. It's a spending decision made by central government and other things have to suffer to afford it.

If anyone in England doesn't like it then they should petition their government representatives to change their system.

Would love to live in Edinburgh I could afford a fantastic house there.:D

No offence, but Edinburgh is one of the hottest housing markets in the UK and prices were rising long after the rest of the UK had slowed down.

If you could afford such a "fantastic house" here then why can you not afford the University fees?

That doesn't really add up.