Two weeks ago, hundreds of St Andrews students donned their vivid red gowns to crowd along the narrow harbour walls of the Fife town in a colourful blend of tradition and togetherness.
asserted
hundreds → don → tradition
For the first pier walk of the Martinmas semester, the customary curtain-raiser to the new academic year at Scotland’s oldest university, freshers and returning undergraduates were out in force.
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freshers → return → force
Sophie Rose Jenkins should have been starting the third year of her comparative literature and classical studies degree.
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Jenkins → start → degree
A scholarship girl from a state school in the Central Belt, it appeared she possessed all the intellectual ability to succeed.
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she → appear → ability
And yet, her voice was absent from the animated chatter that accompanied the scholarly column as it snaked a path from St Salvator’s Chapel to the water’s edge.
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it → accompany → edge
Instead, she took to social media to articulate the various reasons why she has quit her course after two years and will never, under any circumstances, return to her alma mater.
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she → take → mater
3000 students from St Andrews take part in The annual Gaudie, dressed in red robes
Chief among them was her belief that she was subjected to a form of anti-Scottish and classist bullying by well-heeled classmates from south of the Border and overseas, who make up the bulk of the student population.
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who → take → population
Her native Glasgow accent ridiculed, her views ignored or trivialised in tutorials – and all in the land of her birth where she had been made to feel a stranger.
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she → ridicule → stranger
Those views clearly touched a nerve.
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views → touch → nerve
Within hours, the original post on LinkedIn went viral, attracting more than 200,000 views with many other Scottish students reporting similar belittling behaviour at their establishments.
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students → go → establishments
In an interview with the Mail, Ms Jenkins, 20, elaborated on how her initial joy at securing a place at such a venerable institution, which regularly ranks highly in league tables of the UK’s top universities and famously counts the Prince and Princess of Wales among its alumni, quickly turned to disillusionment.
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which → elaborate → disillusionment
She described how she was ‘made to feel completely not welcome’ in tutorials by non-Scottish students: ‘They just kept talking over me and then eventually it got to the point where they said, “I can’t understand what you’re saying”,’ she said.
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she → describe → what
‘Then they just refused to let me talk in the groups.’
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me → refuse → groups
She said she was made to feel ‘incredibly embarrassed’ about her accent, adding: ‘I couldn’t finish a sentence without people laughing at me.’
Not only that, Ms Jenkins, who is now job-hunting with a Diploma in Higher Education, recalls occasions when teaching staff ‘made digs at people’ from ‘working-class Scottish’ backgrounds.
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staff → say → backgrounds
She said she only encountered one Scottish academic throughout her two years at the university, which she believes ‘might be a factor’.
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she → say → university
Perhaps of more relevance is another factor to which she also alludes: ‘I, and loads of other Scottish people I’ve talked to,’ she said, ‘have felt completely ignored and completely pushed to the side in favour of [the University] making profit from tuition fees.
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University → allude → fees
The very mention of tuition fees may well send a cold sweat down the spines of Nationalists hoping to make capital from what they might prefer to characterise as a straightforward tale of anti-Scottish bias.
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they → send → bias
Introduced in 2008 during the SNP’s first term in government, it inevitably proved popular with many – not least parents of school leavers.
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it → introduce → leavers
The Kate and Will effect’ raised St Andrews profile
It meant that while students from elsewhere in the UK did pay fees at Scottish institutions – and international students paid much higher ones – homegrown undergraduates had their fees covered by the Scottish Government through taxation.
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fees → raise → taxation
An easy vote winner, it left all other parties fearing political annihilation at the polls if they dared attempt to deny youngsters their inalienable right to free university education.
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they → leave → education
In November 2014, Alex Salmond doubled down on the pledge in his final hours as First Minister by unveiling a monument stone at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University to underline his party’s immovable position on his proudest achievement: ‘The rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scotland’s students,’ read the inscription.
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inscription → double → students
A decade on, both he and the stone are gone; the former SNP leader, estranged from his party, died suddenly in North Macedonia in 2024, while the stone is locked away from public view in ‘secure storage’.
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stone → go → storage
What remains, however, is the SNP’s commitment to its ruinous promise to the Scottish people which neither they nor any other political party feels brave enough to break, no matter how damaging the consequences.
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consequences → remain → which
A statement on the SNP’s website puts its position bluntly: ‘As long as the SNP is in government there will not be tuition fees in Scotland.
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SNP → put → Scotland
Yet, far from opening up our world-renowned academic institutions to bright young Scots, regardless of their economic circumstances, the experience of ordinary Scots like Ms Jenkins is that it has made them harder to get into.
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them → open → Jenkins
In a market where most income could be derived from international students – many paying £30,000 a year or more – and the second-best option was non-Scottish domiciled UK students who pay more than £9,500 a year to study at any of our top universities, homegrown students were the third-class citizens of the arrangement.
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students → derive → arrangement
Through a combination of direct payments and block grants to universities, the Scottish Government spends a total of around £7,500 per Scottish student per year.
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Government → spend → year
It keeps expenditure in check by capping each university’s intake of those wishing to study in their homeland.
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It → keep → homeland
To offset the financial hit of educating a fixed number of cheaper Scottish students, our most prestigious universities have increasingly had to rely on attracting lucrative fee-payers from outside Scotland.
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universities → offset → Scotland
Twenty years ago, just under half (46 per cent) of all Edinburgh University students were Scottish domiciled.
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half → domicile → students
The figure for St Andrews’ undergraduates hovers below 30 per cent, the lowest of any Scottish university.
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figure → hover → university
In this academic war of attrition, even high-achieving Scottish pupils are collateral damage, denied places at their own country’s top universities in favour of English or overseas students with less impressive grades but the means to pay their way.
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pupils → achieve → way
Even those Scots who do gain entry can struggle with student life at institutions which now predominantly serve other lands.
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which → gain → lands
At St Andrews, of course, the ‘Kate and Will effect’ raised the 613-year-old institution’s profile from a well-regarded regional university into an ultra-competitive global choice where applications skyrocketed by more than 40 per cent following the heir to the throne’s stay.
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applications → raise → stay
Given the town’s population almost doubles during term-time, with students arriving from 120 countries, Scots can feel easily isolated.
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Scots → give → countries
Those who responded to Ms Jenkins’ post certainly think so.
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who → respond → post
One former St Andrews student told the Mail: ‘I think I masked my accent a lot and made it palatable to people, so whenever I did slip into my accent people would make comments.
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people → tell → comments
‘But I am lucky that I was never singled out in a tutorial or seminar - maybe because I felt a lot of imposter syndrome and so rarely spoke up.
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I → single → syndrome
I genuinely interacted as little as I could with very privileged people in St Andrews.
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I → interact → Andrews
Another said: ‘As someone from Ayrshire who has come through the system, I think this extends beyond St Andrews.’
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this → say → Andrews
…and 27 more, not listed.
The Aporia
