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Graduate endowment fee
09/06/2008
Regulations have been laid in the Scottish Parliament enabling students to pay their deferred graduate endowment fees through the student loans system.
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop said:
"A critical issue has emerged in the past week or so relating to the previous practice of allowing students to take out a loan to settle their deferred graduate endowment fees.
"During detailed examination of the rules, we have found that a previous agreement for payment by this group of students of the fee by loan is not supported by the relevant regulations - The Graduate Endowment (Scotland) Regulations 2007 - laid on March 6, 2007 by the previous administration.
"This has created a challenging but important issue for us to address and we have been working urgently to find a solution. By introducing these regulations into the Parliament on Friday these students will be able to pay the fee through the student loans system.
"Ministers are also taking the decision today not to request repayment of any deferred graduate endowment fee until the students concerned complete their studies.
"By moving swiftly on this issue, the Scottish Government is ensuring that Parliament can agree these regulations by the last day of the current session on June 27, with them coming into force on June 30.
"For students who have already paid the fee but who are still continuing their studies we are currently exploring what options are open to us to put them back in their original position. We will be writing to all students concerned next week with an update."
In relation to the graduate endowment fee, the Scottish Government legislated to to ensure that anyone who completed their course on or after April 1, 2007 and would have been liable to pay from April 1 this year would be relieved of that liability.
There remains a group of students who became liable for the graduate endowment fee on April 1 2005, 2006 and 2007 but who had been permitted to defer their payments. This group consists of students who had completed a first course of undergraduate study but who were continuing in higher education.
In March, the Student Awards Agency in Scotland wrote to these 2,457 students informing them that the Graduate Endowment Abolition (Scotland) Bill had been passed by Parliament and asking them to pay the graduate endowment fee either by cash or by taking out a student loan.
Since then, detailed examination of the regulations in this area has found that the practice of allowing these students to take out a student loan to settle their deferred graduate endowment fee liability is not supported in the relevant regulations - The Graduate Endowment (Scotland) Regulations 2007. These were laid by the previous administration on March 6, 2007 and came into force on August 1, 2007. This meant that if the Scottish Government did nothing to help them, these students would be liable to settle their graduate endowment fees in cash.
The new regulations, laid on Friday June 6, will allow this cohort of students to pay the graduate endowment fee by loan. Ministers are also taking the decision not to request repayment of any deferred graduate endowment fee until the students concerned complete their studies. We will be writing to all students concerned next week - both those that paid in response to recent correspondence from the Students Awards Agency for Scotland and those that have not yet paid - to provide them with an update.