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Chapter 3: College Funding
Colleges are funded by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council. Established in October 2005 through a merger of the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, the Council provides a strategic overview of tertiary education in Scotland to help secure a more coherent system of high-quality learning, teaching and research.
Colleges are funded by the Council for an agreed target of student activity each year. Since academic year 2001-02 colleges, as a sector, have consistently exceeded this target.
In 2004-05, colleges received about 70% of their income from grants from the Scottish Funding Council 12; 17% from tuition fees and education contracts; and 13% from other sources 13.
Figure 4 below shows the sources of income of Scotland's colleges as a proportion of their total income from 1996-97 to 2004-05. During that period in terms of the proportion of total income there was a small rise of 2% in both Funding Council grants and tuition fees and education grant and a corresponding 4% drop in 'other income' sources.
Funding 2004-05 | (£000) |
|---|
Funding Council grants | 397,924 |
|---|
Tuition fees and education contracts | 96,247 |
|---|
Research grants and contracts | 855 |
|---|
Endowments and investment income | 4,112 |
|---|
Other income | 67,101 |
|---|
Total | 566,239 |
|---|
In recent years colleges have maintained their income from other sources at around 8.5% of total income. This excludes income from direct European funds (via a bids based process), tuition fees and education contracts. Direct European fund income is around 3% of total income.
Figure 4: Sources of income of Scotland's Colleges as a proportion of their total income between 1996-97 and 2004-05 (Source: college accounts)
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