It's been on the cards for some time but this year it's finally happened. The annual cost of going to college is now more than £5,000, if you live away from home, according to figures supplied by DCU.
As might be expected - given the ongoing housing crisis - accommodation charges have suffered the biggest price hike and are largely responsible for pushing annual college costs above the £5,000 mark. The monthly cost of renting a shared house or flat is now a whopping £240 per month, estimates Barry Kehoe, who is director of student services at DCU.
"The living expenses of a student living away from home in self-catering accommodation for the eight-and-a-half months' academic year will be £5,100," he says. Even if they remain at home, students will incur annual costs of around £3,000.
For some families, these are negligible amounts, but for others, they make going to college impossible. Does anybody care? The fact that there is such a huge disparity between the real cost of going to college and the maximum maintenance grant payable is nothing short of outrageous.
Back in June, the Minister for Education and Science, Dr Michael Woods, announced a five per cent increase in the third-level maintenance grant for the next academic year. At the time, the Minister said it was "over and above inflation and will ensure that the real value of the grants to students is maintained".
Who is he kidding? The increase means that a student eligible for the highest rate of maintenance grant will receive £1,775 - not even enough to pay the rent. Predictably, the grants announcement has stirred up a furore in the Union of Students in Ireland. "The National Partnership Agreement promised us prosperity and fairness," says Ian Russell, USI's education officer. "However, a maximum grant of £49 per week will not lead to a fairer distribution of college places among all classes.
"What we are lacking is a Government with a sense of social justice and an understanding that Ireland's future prosperity is dependent on a highly educated workforce." As far back as 1995, the Government White Paper, Charting Our Education Future promised that "as further resources become available, priority will be given to increasing the real value of maintenance grants."
"If the resources aren't available now," asserts Barry Kehoe, "I don't know when they will be."
DCU's director of student services argues that over the last two decades the value of the student grant has been eroded to an enormous extent. Since 1982, he asserts, annual maintenance grants have failed to keep pace with inflation.
Indeed, in some years in the early 1980s, there was no increase in the third-level maintenance grant. While inflation has increased by 121 per cent in the intervening years, the maintenance grant has gone up by only 77 per cent.
"It's disingenuous of the Minister to say that this is a respectable hike because they're working from such a low base," Kehoe argues.
"I see students who are struggling to live on the grant. If they get the full grant and it costs them over £5,000 to survive for a year in college, where's the balance going to come from? The parents of genuinely poor students don't have any money to give them." Kehoe argues that in Ireland the level of student support amounts only to a subsidy. In most other developed countries, he says, they take a more logical approach. "They calculate what it actually costs for a student to live and work back from that figure," he explains.
"They look at how the costs are going to be met - by means-tested grants or loans or a combination of both. They stipulate the amount of the parental contribution and in some countries, this contribution is legally enforced." Here at home, in order to qualify for a full maintenance grant, the annual family income must be no more than £20,200 if there are fewer than four dependent children in the family. Where two or more children, or the candidate's parents, are pursuing full-time education at third level, attending a PLC, student nursing or Garda training, participating in CERT or Teagasc courses or attending full-time education courses in Northern Ireland, the income level rises - by £2,270 where there are two such children in the family, and by increments of £2,270 per child thereafter.
Thanks to Minister Woods, the full maintenance grant for a student living away from home is now £1,775 - which represents an increase of £85 on last year. It's hard to understand how anyone could be even mildly enthusiastic about this negligible amount. Students who live less than fifteen miles away from college, meanwhile, can look forward to a maximum nonadjacent rate of £710. Last year, for the first time, mature students who qualified for a grant were paid the higher non-adjacent rate. No-one could possibly expect any student to be able to survive on these amounts. So how does the Government expect students to make up the shortfall?
According to the Department of Education, 40 per cent of third-level students qualify for maintenance grants at a cost last year of over £82 million. It's clear, though, from a lot of anecdotal evidence that there are many students in receipt of grants whose families could well afford to give their offspring full financial support at college. There are also lots of students who are clearly in need of much greater support as their families are less well off.
According to DCU's cost of going to college figures, it will cost over £5,000 to keep you in college for a year if you're living away from home. Inevitably, rent (£240) will eat up almost half of your monthly allowance. On top of that, you can expect to spend almost £140 per month on food, over £40 on travel and around £70 on books, academic requisites, clothes, laundry and medical expenses. Live at home, and DCU's director of student services estimates that it's going to cost you over £300 per month. You'll need to allow about £130 for food - including eating at home - over £40 for travel and around £70 for books, other academic requisites, clothes and medical expenses.
USI's most recent survey, meanwhile, shows that students are spending an average of £425 per month keeping themselves at college.
Last November, the Government earmarked £95 million in the National Development Plan for third-level access - that is extra supports to enable students with disabilities, mature second-chance students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds to take up college places. The then Minister for Education and Science, Mr Micheal Martin, indicated that increased maintenance grants would be paid to students whose families were social welfare recipients. Martin indicated that such students would get an extra annual grant of up to £1,000.
Minister Woods meanwhile has said that preparatory work for the funding programme is under way and that further announcements will be made to allow for payments in 2001. This year, meanwhile, poor students can eat cake.
Third-level grant schemes are administered by both the VECs and the local authorities. The VEC Scholarship Scheme covers full-time undergraduate and postgraduate courses at DCU, UL, the ITs and a number of colleges in the non-university sector. Students on approved full-time PLC courses are now eligible for ESF-funded grants which are also available to students following middle-level technician courses at the ITs. If you wish to apply for the Higher Education Grant Scheme, you should apply to your local authority.
One of the problems of low maintenance grants is that many students are forced to work their way through college. Of course there are plenty of students from relatively well-heeled families who take up part-time jobs simply for beer or designer clothes money. The fact remains, however, that for an uncomfortably large number of students having a job is the difference between being able to afford to stay in college and having to leave.
USI's most recent survey shows that 53 per cent of students now hold down part-time jobs. Of these, just under half work more than 17 hours per week. The vast bulk of these students earn less than £5 per hour, with almost a quarter earning less than £3.50 per hour.
Increasingly, college staff are becoming concerned about the amount of part-time work students are doing and its effect on study. "Part-time work has got out of hand," comments Barry Kehoe. "We might have a modular credit system - but it's not flexible. You can't work your way through college on a self-pacing basis. A three-year degree is a three-year degree and you have to put in the time. There is a common perception that students work part-time to maintain a lifestyle - but that's not true of the students I see. We are aware of students, who, because of excessive part-time work, can't benefit from college life and whose health is affected. We have instances of students failing or only getting a bare pass due to excessive part-time employment."
