Leanna Byrne | Editor
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) have focused their efforts on protecting the student grants this year in advance of the budget announcement next week in their pre-budget submission.
USI met with TDs and Senators to deliver their pre-budget submission in Buswell’s Hotel on Molesworth Street earlier today in which the protection of the grant received the most attention. According to the USI submission, “the grant remains insufficient, and cuts continue to impact most severely on students from the least well off backgrounds”.
USI are fighting to make sure that the maintenance grant will not be cut in either rate, threshold or eligibility as it has been for the four previous years of the budget.
Speaking at the pre-budget briefing, USI President Joe O’Connor warned TDs that cutting the maintenance grant would result in a higher cost to the State with students going on the dole and availing of the job seekers allowance.
“If one in every hundred students drop out of college as a result of cut to the maintenance grant that could result in €6 million per year in dole payments,” said O’Connor.
When questioned by Fine Gael Mayo TD Deputy John O’Mahony about dropout trends and statistics rather than “hypothetical evidence”, USI were not able to produce concrete figures as no study has been conducted into why students are dropping out of college. However, O’Connor highlighted that the demand for Student Assistant Funds in individual students’ unions across Ireland has increased and that more students have been dropping out than ever before.
USI Vice President for Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance discussed further that exit interviews with students are selective and mainly deal with students that are leaving college because they are doing the wrong course. She suggested that a study be conducted on why students are not progressing into following years.
In relation to the student contribution charge, USI have accepted that the announcement has already been made and that the mechanisms for the increase to €3,000 by 2015 has already been put in place. Instead, pre-budget submission requests for a study on the financial and mental impact of the incremental increases on students and families to be carried out and for the Minister to consider a timeline for “post recessionary row backs”.
Other areas USI have addressed are support systems for mature students, where they do not wish to see any changes to the Back to Education Allowance, and for there to be a fairer loan scheme negotiated between the Department of Education and Bank of Ireland.
