Dublin Economic Workshop: The return of undergraduate fees is the only realistic means of bridging the funding deficit in the third level sector, according to a paper delivered to the Kenmare conference yesterday.
Expanded admissions of non-EU nationals and graduate students can contribute to funding, but the scale of the money required means that the return of fees provides the best hope of adequate funding in the medium term.
The paper, by Dr Alan Barrett and Ms Ann-Marie O'Connor of Farrell Grant Sparks and Prof Gerry Boyle of NUI Maynooth, examines a number of ways of calculating the amount of funding needed if Irish universities are to reach the highest international level.
Drawing on the recent OECD report and other data, the paper looks at figures based on indicators such as spending per student and the education budget as a percentage of GDP. For example, Ireland spends 1.3 per cent of GDP on third-level education as against 2.7 per cent in the US and Korea and 2.5 per cent in Canada. Increasing Irish spending by 1 per cent of GDP per annum would cost €1.3 billion.
Despite initiatives such as the establishment of Science Foundation Ireland and extra spending on research, there has not been a concerted move towards increasing funding towards the objective of a "world class" third level system, the paper's authors said.
Spending on third level is currently estimated at €1.5 billion and the paper estimates that this would need to be increased by between €500 million and €1.4 billion, depending on which measure was used.
The reintroduction of undergraduate fees, set at a level which would meet some but not all of the cost of providing the course, could raise some €450 million, the paper estimates.
This would involve a sliding fee scale from €3,600 per annum for arts and law to over €6,000 for dentistry and veterinary courses, which are the most expensive to provide.
A system of student loans would be essential if this happened, they argue.
Increased funding would have to be accompanied by structural reform, the authors argue, involving the deregulation of academic salaries, better performance management, new governance procedures and streamlined institutional structures.
This point was also reflected in a paper delivered by Dr Tom McCarthy, chief executive of the Irish Management Institute.
"Far from being a threat to academic freedom and values, attention to the university as a business is essential if the sustaining benefits of these freedoms and values are to be achieved," he argued.
Universities needed to develop sophisticated approaches to allocating and managing their internal resources, he said.
Addressing the contentious area of fees, he said it was difficult to see a political move for a wholesale return for all undergraduates. One approach would be for the early stage of third level education to be free, with charges levied at the later honours stage.
