Shame and snobbery as American students blamed for St Andrews classism

A former student, Sophie Rose Jenkins, posted on LinkedIn that she won’t return to St Andrews because of pervasive classism that shames working-class students. Her account sparked hundreds of responses describing a campus culture split between lower‑income Scottish undergraduates - who pay no tuition but often have limited disposable income despite loans and bursaries - and a growing cohort of wealthy international students, particularly Americans who make up about a fifth of undergraduates and pay roughly £33,250 a year. Students describe visible signs of wealth and exclusivity: Pret shops in a small town, luxury homeware, designer clothes alongside campus events resembling fraternity/sorority and old‑money British rituals, black‑tie dinners, fashion shows and exclusive societies that reinforce social segregation.

Voices across the student body echoed Jenkins’s experience: scholarship holders feeling excluded, privately educated students noting national and class cliques, and international students puzzled by narrow social circles. St Andrews says it has had few formal complaints and is engaging Jenkins; university leadership frames classism as a broader societal problem universities should counter. Commentators link the tensions to Scotland’s funding model and to the university’s high intake of privately educated and fee‑paying internationals, which students say has altered campus dynamics and intensified visible inequality.