When it will next review the cap on funding for Scottish students seeking to study at Scottish universities.

The Scottish Government works closely with the SFC and Scottish Universities on an annual basis to review and deliver sustainable funding for universities and the whole tertiary sector when setting the budget allocation. This flexibility allows the numbers of funded places for eligible students to respond to university and student demands, so that in 2022-23 there are 121,917 full-time equivalent funded places, compared to 115,987 for 2019-20, the last academic year prior to the pandemic.
Scottish Universities are autonomous institutions and as such, with the exception of controlled subjects, the Scottish Government and Government Ministers do not direct individual universities on the number of funded places made available for specific subjects for eligible Scottish and EU domicile students. Universities are allocated a finite amount of money and it is then for the universities themselves to decide: how to distribute these places between faculties; the courses they offer; and how many of the total funded places will be available on each course. To give universities additional flexibility in student recruitment, the Scottish Funding Council allows universities to recruit up to 10% above the number of funded places awarded.
The Scottish Government firmly believes that access to university should be based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay, however there is a need to exert a level of control over the higher education budget, which means that the number of students able to access a funded place is not unlimited. Our commitment to free tuition means that, unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt of up to £27,750, and average student loan debt for Scottish students is the lowest in the UK.