There are fifteen universities in Scotland and three other institutions of higher education which have the authority to award academic degrees. The oldest is St. Andrews, which was founded in 1413. Three other "ancient universities", Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, date from before 1600. The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) gained full university status in 2011, having been created through the federation of 13 colleges and research institutions across the Highlands and Islands, a process that began in 2001.
All Scottish universities have the power to award degrees at all levels: undergraduate, taught postgraduate, and doctoral. Education in Scotland is controlled by the Scottish Government under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998. The minister responsible for higher education is the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, currently Angela Constance MSP of the Scottish National Party. University status in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom today is conferred by the Privy Council which takes advice from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
All Scottish universities are public universities and funded by the Scottish Government (through its Scottish Funding Council) and financial support is provided for Scottish-domiciled students by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland. Students ordinarily resident in Scotland or the European Union do not pay tuition fees for their first undergraduate degree, but tuition fees are charged for those from the rest of the United Kingdom. All students are required to pay tuition fees for postgraduate education (e.g. MSc, PhD), except in certain priority areas funded by the Scottish Government, or if another source of funding can be found (e.g. research council studentship for a PhD). A representative body called Universities Scotland works to promote Scotland's universities, as well as six other higher education institutions.
The university sector in Scotland had a total income of £3.5 billion in 2014/15 with the Scottish Government giving approximately £623 million in funding for individual university student support. The Scottish Funding Council contributing £1.1 billion of public money to the fifteen universities, this was a six per cent reduction since 2010/11.
In 2014-15, approximately 232,570 students studied at universities or institutes of higher education in Scotland, of which 56% were female and 44% male, with 66% being domiciled in Scotland, 12% from the rest of the United Kingdom, 9% from the EU and the remaining 13% being international students. Of all these, approximately 76% were studying for their first degree (i.e. undergraduate level) and 24% for a taught postgraduate degree (primarily a master's degree) or a doctoral research degree (primarily PhD). The remainder were mostly on other programmes such as Higher National Diploma. 16,000 students were studying in Scotland with The Open University via distance-learning, and the Open University teaches 40 per cent of Scotland's part-time undergraduates.
In the 2016-17 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, five Scottish universities are among the top 200 worldwide: University of Edinburgh (at 27), University of Glasgow (at 88), University of St. Andrews (at =110), University of Dundee (at =180), and the University of Aberdeen (at =188).