The Liberal Democrats last week called for students to be guaranteed £7000 a year to help them through their studies.

Education spokeswoman Margaret Smith, MSP for Edinburgh West, has hit out at the SNP government, accusing them of breaking their promises in order to alleviate student debt.

Commenting ahead of the debate last week, Mrs Smith said: “The SNP have let down Scottish students.

“Instead of keeping their £2 billion promise, they allocated £30 million to start the process of switching from loans to grants which won’t put a single penny into student pockets right now.”

With the financial downturn affecting students, the Lib Dems want a £7000 minimum income guarantee to be available to students made up of a combination of grants, loans and parental contributions.

With students fighting the financial pressures, university and college hardship funds are also under severe strain.

Mrs Smith said: “The majority of them have had to ask for emergency in-year funds to cope with students’ pleas for help.”

Outgoing NUS Scotland President, Gurjit Singh said: “The Government’s promise of £30 million, through the Supporting a Smarter Scotland consultation, is wholly inadequate to meet the needs of Scotland’s students – needs made all the more urgent by the current economic crisis and the strain that has placed on hardship funds across the country.”

However, Robin McAlpine, a spokesman from Universities Scotland, openly declared that we should consider “a degree of student debt to not necessarily be a bad thing.”

Mr McAlpine said: “Forcing students to be aware of problems that they will inevitably face after leaving university, it will help equip those with good money management skills, office skills and effective time management. Undoubtedly, however, it is the case that too much debt and too much temp work is bad.

“It is important for universities to ensure that students get the most out of their experience without being saddled with unmanageable quantities of debt. However, it is for policy makers to decide on the right balance between ‘too much’ and ‘too little’ debt, and it is through good evidence-based surveys that we will be able to define such precise sums.”

In response to this, a Scottish government spokesperson, told The Journal: “We have recognised that the student support system was inadequately funded by previous administrations and that is why we have provided £38m to introduce grants for up to 20,000 part-time students and are currently consulting on a wide range of proposals, including a minimum income guarantee, that will see a further £30 million invested in student support.”

The spokesperson said: "The Scottish government believes that access to higher education should be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay."