Students have campaigned successfully since 22 March, when thousands of students marched and demonstrated outside Holyrood on the day parliament dissolved, to get candidates to sign up to the Reclaim Your Voice campaign and commit not to introduce fees, to protect college places and graduate numbers and to improve student support in the next parliamentary session.
Commenting after the SNP gained a majority in the Scottish Parliament, Liam Burns, President of NUS Scotland said:
"Because of campaigning by students across Scotland, we now have over 85% of the Parliament and an unprecedented SNP Majority Government committed to improving student financial support and protecting the number of graduates and college places in Scotland, without introducing tuition fees. On paper, these elections are good news for students.
"But we've been here before and warm words before an election can turn into votes of betrayal after our ballots have been cast. We need urgent action from across the parliament to lift the poorest students out from below the poverty line.
“Ruling out tuition fees is right and proper, but unless the new Parliament puts improving student support at the top of their agenda, 'free' education will be little more then a middle-class subsidy with the poorest continuing to be priced out of education."