Local students could face £7,000 tuition fees

11.42.23am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 20th Oct 2009

There is now less than eight months to save a new generation of young people from huge increases in university tuition fees, according to Liberal Democrat candidate for Edinburgh South, Fred Mackintosh.

Fred Mackintosh's campaign is supported by students from across Scotland

He was speaking after the Conservatives suggested they will increase tuition fees to £7,000 if they take power at the next general election, which has to be held by next June. That will see tuition fees for undergraduates studying in England and Wales more than double. Currently there is a cap of £3,300 in England and Wales. There are no tuition fees for Scottish students in Scotland, but large numbers of Edinburgh school leavers go to Universities south of the border.

Peter Mandelson has already suggested that Labour will allow universities to charge more than at present if re-elected - though the party is too scared to push through the changes it wants before June. Only the Liberal Democrats will scrap those tuition fees that remain in the UK.

Fred Mackintosh said, ""I look around Edinburgh South and I see people return from university with no job and a bank balance tens of thousands of pounds in the red. What sort of message is that?

"Labour and now the Tories are showing their true colours. They just want to saddle young people with staggering amounts of debt on graduation. The choice is clear: the people of Edinburgh South can vote for party which will condemn a generation of youngsters to greater indebtedness or for the Liberal Democrats who will make education free again, giving young people the best possible start in life."

The Liberal Democrats believe university education should be free and everyone who has the ability should be able to go - and not be put off by the cost. That approach motivated the abolition of tuition fees for Scottish students studying in Scotland in 2000.