£100 million cost of 'free' degrees for EU students in Scotland European anti-discrimination laws mean he must also extend this promise to students from other EU countries, although he is allowed to charge school leavers from south of the Border. Mike Russell, the Education Minister, promised almost two years ago to examine ways of clawing back funding from EU students only but has proposed nothing since. Liz Smith, Scottish Tory education spokesman, said the Scottish Government figures were further evidence the status quo is not sustainable when public spending and services are being cut. "It begs the question yet again about how the SNP is going to find this kind of money to fund this promise from the taxpayer," she said. Mr Russell has not been able to implement an EU charge because he has been told consistently that EU law will not allow him to do it. The figures disclose payments made by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS), which administers payments for higher education tuition fees and loans north of the Border. They disclose that that the number of EU students at Scottish universities increased by 4.9 per cent over the same period, while the amount of taxpayers" money used to cover their tuition fees increased 6.1 per cent. The latter figure is higher because a larger proportion of the foreigners are sitting courses with larger fees, for example because they are postgraduates. Meanwhile, the number of Scottish students at universities north of the Border has increased slightly over the past year, while their taxpayer funding has fallen slightly to nearly £548 million. However, this total is still more than £115 million higher than a decade previously. According to the figures, 9,950 recipients of public funding lived in households with an annual income of at least £50,000 per year. But the actual figure is expected to be much higher as 54,075 who benefited from taxpayers" money did not declare their parents" earnings. A Scottish Government spokesman said ministers are "still pursuing how we could raise additional income from students from outside Scotland within EU law and discussions are ongoing."