The Scottish Executive is understood to be considering raising university tuition fees for students from England.

With English universities set to start charging top-up fees of up to £3,000 per year from next year, Edinburgh ministers fear an influx of students from south of the border seeking to take advantage of their different rules.

Scottish higher education institutions will not charge the course costs under devolution, but have a graduate repayment system of £2,000 instead.

But the executive could raise this to as much as £15,000 over a five-year course, in a bid to deter English undergraduates squeezing Scots out of degree course places in their own country.

But opposition party the SNP has warned against "checkpoints at the border," while the National Union of Students remains against the idea.