Three years ago, Provost Patrick Prendergast said that he wanted Trinity to become “a university for the whole island of Ireland”. Since then, concrete steps have been taken in Trinity to achieve this goal, with two groundbreaking projects – the 2013 Northern Irish Engagement Programme and the 2014 A-Level Admissions Feasibility Study. The feasibility study directly precipitated the move last year by all seven universities in the south to change the conversion rate of A-Level grades to CAO points, making the goal of studying here much more achievable for students from Northern Ireland. In March, following a 22 per cent increase in applications from the North, the Editorial Board of The University Times commended Trinity – pointing out that it had situated itself at the forefront of challenging how students from Northern Ireland are admitted into higher education in this country, as it has done with its similar CAO admissions feasibility study.
Let’s ignore for a moment the general consequences for Northern Ireland of a British exit from the European Union. Writing in the Guardian today, Fintan O’Toole said a Brexit would put the North in a “horrendous bind”, leaving it not only cut off from the rest of Ireland by a European border, but amidst a UK that would be melting around it.
But a British exit would almost certainly place students from the North who wish to study in Ireland in a horrendous bind, too. For one thing, if the UK leaves the EU, students from the North will not be eligible for EU fee status under the current Higher Education Authority criteria, and it is this criteria that universities must adhere to.
Of course, if on Thursday the UK does decide to leave the EU, it will not happen immediately, and there will be a period of time to negotiate all of the kinds of things that govern Ireland’s relationship with the UK. But this too will not happen immediately, and a Brexit vote would create immediate uncertainty, creating a situation where it would not be inconceivable to see large swathes of applicants from the North choose courses in the UK over Ireland.
A 22 per cent increase in applications means nothing if a diminishing percentage actually accept places. In that sense, it is easy to imagine how a Brexit could reverse the years of work that Trinity has put into recruiting students from the North.
