SCOTTISH universities will receive up to 3000 extra students as a result of decisions around school exam grades, the Universities Minister has said.

In order to prevent applicants from being “crowded out” when exam results reverted to teacher grade estimates, MSPs were told that between 2000 and 3000 more places will be required.

Richard Lochhead told Holyrood’s Education Committee that ballpark figures for the costs of this are between £16 million and £24m.

MSPs on the committee questioned the extent to which the Scottish Government would meet its commitment to fully fund these places.

Lochhead said: “We took the decision, once the teachers’ predicted grades were adopted, that no student in Scotland or applicant would be crowded out from their college or university place as a result of the impact of Covid and the changes to the grades.”

The Scottish Government is investigating “one or two” cases not being given their college or university places despite receiving the relevant grades, he said.

Lochhead continued: “We estimate at this stage – and it’s a rough estimate so we can’t take these figures as final figures – that there will be 2000 to 3000 extra places required in university.

“And our ballpark figure for funding that fully would be £16m to £24m.”

In response to a question from Alex Neil, he said the drop in international students was not as severe as was feared in the earlier stages of the pandemic, but universities still face a deficit of around £191m.

Scottish Labour MSP Iain Gray asked if the additional places would be at a cost to universities

and if the Scottish Government would fully fund the teaching costs.

Lochhead said: “Yes, what I’m saying to you is one person’s definition of the full cost of that might be different to another person’s.

“We discuss these issues with the universities all the time because the funding model is very complex.”

Scottish Conservative MSP Jamie Greene, the party’s spokesperson on education, highlighted a submission from Universities Scotland which discussed long-term funding challenges.

The university umbrella group said the extra places “further exacerbate the funding problem in higher education as every Scottish and EU-domiciled student is under-funded by £700 in real terms relative to 2014/15 levels”.

The Universities Minister said the Scottish Funding Council would conduct a “major review” of further and higher education funding to look at the issues.

Lochhead also told the committee that students’ experiences of Freshers’ Week would be different this year due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

He said: “Freshers’ Week may be more of an online experience this time around and more of a sober affair than the usual jam-packed freshers’ fairs when you first arrive at college or university.”

John Swinney said earlier in the week that the event would have to “be pursued in a safer fashion”.