As an English student at Edinburgh University, I’ve experienced first-hand the kind of prejudice you come up against as a dirty pom.

It’s a potent mixture of pre-emptive defensiveness and inverse snobbery- when you say you’re from London, for example, people assume you think you’re better than them, and then they sneer down their nose at you for it.

The characterisation of English students as superior and self-satisfied is, for the most part, unfounded. The characterisation of English students as superior, self satisfied and able to afford annual tuition fees of £9,000, however, borders on the absurd.

And yet, unbelievably, the decision has been made for these extortionate fees to be introduced to UK students studying in Scotland from 2012. In light of this, it’s not too difficult to understand why human rights lawyer Phil Shiner is planning to wage legal war on the Scottish university funding system on the grounds of discrimination. While arguments that the decision was actually racially motivated are unlikely to hold much water, its effects will be so restrictive and so discriminatory that the accusations might as well be true.

The rage that the English, Welsh and Northern Irish are feeling has less to do with the fact that Scottish students seem to be weathering the cuts to the education system with not so much as a scratch to their bank balances and more to do with the fact that the rest of the EU are still welcome to free tuition. It seems a little too much like inviting the whole of Europe to lunch while home students are left to starve. Of course, English students in Scotland have been paying for their education for some time now, but have gratefully accepted the reduced rates (half the price of what they’d pay outside of Scotland) and generally held their tongues when their European flatmates have boasted of their free tuition. The recent developments, however, are simply too ridiculous to be ignored.

The fact that Scotland wants to hold onto free education for Scottish students is admirable, and something which they should be supported in doing. However, for everyone else to come along for the ride, on the shoulders of home students, just takes the piss. If UK students are going to have to sell their parents to pay for their education, EU students should have to give up something too.

Leaving aside the argument of whether it is the education system that should be bearing the brunt of the cuts, it is surely fairer to conclude that all visitors to Scotland should contribute something to their education. While EU students’ free tuition has its roots in a well-meaning anti-discrimination law, it seems that its purpose is defeated when UK students are forced to foot the bill- a development which will certainly make coming to Scotland’s prestigious universities an impossibility for many students. Under these circumstances, it seems as though the laws are no longer preventing discrimination so much as they are redistributing it.

Scottish education secretary Mike Russell admitted in June that the introduction of the £9,000 fees was in part to discourage the "flow" of English students looking to escape the similar fees they would encounter in the rest of the country. Interestingly, his position on the 16,000 EU students currently enjoying a free Scottish education was that the arrangement made the country’s universities ‘cosmopolitan’. In other words, he’s all for diversity, as long as it’s of the continental variety and looks good on a university prospectus. The English, Welsh and Northern Irish, being somewhat less impressive, can come along too, if they can pay for it. Maybe this is a racist issue after all.

Originally published 13 September 2011.