Marco Biagi addresses EUSA

The EUSA general meeting on 26 October, saw Marco Biagi, SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central, explain how “proud” he was of his party’s commitment and policy towards students.

The SNP has taken a clear stand on education, in the past as well as present, clamoring for funding for Scottish students, and more central control of universities’ decision-making processes on tuition fees.

On RUK fees, Mr Biagi said he supported the plan for Scottish students to have the possibility of studying in England and Wales through funding. On previous occasions he has voiced that “the practicality of the situation is that governments are responsible for their own voters, and the Scottish government should only fund Scottish students”.

In spite of such statements, he chose to stress that the claim of Edinburgh University’s ranking as 2nd worst on bursary packages, needed to be investigated.

Expressing a preference for a more internationalised scheme, the MSP also pointed out the possible benefits of exchange programmes, both for the students opting to go abroad, and their home universities. Mr Biagi himself spent a semester in California, saying he later felt the stay was an advantage to his education.

Supporting international students, with little chance of their own to voice opinion at the polls, Mr Biagi pointed out how universities had increased international fees with little or no warning to these students, who were already paying extortionate fees.

Biagi’s utopian vision of “a system where no-one pays fees” will continue to face trouble from UK legislators, who are set on charging UK students fees that Biagi stands to disagree with.