There was an article in the paper at the weekend that I probably only noticed beacause of the LEAP evening earlier in the week.  “Advanced Highers have become a near certain ticket to Oxbridge so why are so few pupils taking them?” It extols the merits of Advanced Highers as a respected top flight qualification with guaranteed entry to leading English universities. It bemoans the fact that Scottish universities are only asking for Highers as entry qualifications and comments that, if more students entered with AHs, the four year degree course could be reduced to 3 years.   The discussion of this in the article really overlooks the fact that the funding structure gives no encouragement to go to university south of the border.  Why land yourself with an enormous debt and go somewhere you don’t know when there are very good universities in your own environment with the likelihood of a much smaller debt at the end?