The USI has criticised today's fee increases and cuts to grants and core funding.
Rónán Burtenshaw
Deputy Editor
The Union of Students in Ireland have said that they are “dismayed” by Public Expenditure & Reform Minister Brendan Howlin’s announcement today that the student contribution for third-level is to rise by €250 to €2,250 p/a from next year.
In a statement issued this afternoon they said that the increase “will cause enormous hardship for families, but will only raise approximately 16 million euro for the Exchequer.” Further cuts to core pay and non-funding pay, which it estimates to 4% over the next four years, would also “put colleges under enormous pressure to maintain standards”.
The statement went on to criticise the cuts of 3% across to the Higher Education Grant, saying that “it means that students on the lowest level of the grant will be expected to eat, pay for transport and buy books for just over 1 Euro a day.” This, it said, would deny “opportunities” to those “locked in a cycle of poverty”.
Despite expressing a willingness to work with the Minister and the Department of Education to “secure additional efficiencies” they directed further criticism at the government for its cuts to the post-graduate grant. It accused the government of putting at risk the country’s research and development sector, “which is vital to our economic recovery”.
The Comprehensive Expenditure Report 2012-2014, the measures of which were read out by Minister Howlin, said that “increases to student contributions have been kept to the minimum possible”. Despite what Mr. Howlin called “difficult choices” the report said that the government had sought to ensure “higher education continues to make a full contribution to Ireland’s development and recovery”.
While existing grant-holders will be unaffected by today’s cuts, the postgraduate maintenance grant will be scrapped for prospective students. “Special rate students” at postgraduate level, those whose total reckonable income in the tax year January to December (which is often assessed on the basis of their parents’ or guardians’ incomes) is not more than €22,703, will have their fees subsidised but receive no maintenance grant. A system to implement a “€2,000 fee contribution grant to a further 4,000 students” will also be put in place.
Additional measures announced today by Minister Howlin included a the “introduction from 2013 of a capital asset test” and a reduction of 20% in the allocation given to the Students with Disabilities fund. In total the cuts amounted to €132.3m with €23.6m cut from the core funding of higher-level education. The education budget next year, Minister Howlin said, would make up 17% of the €8.6billion budget for current spending.
USI President Gary Redmond characterised the cuts as “regressive and short-sighted” and said they would “exclude thousands of would-be students from education”. “The promises laid out in glossy election manifestos which were loudly trumpeted by candidates less nine months ago, now lie in tatters along with the credibility of this government’s stated aim of building long-term sustainable economic growth”, he said.
