Teaching Matters: Most recent debate about third-level funding has focused on the needs of the universities and other higher education institutions.
Now that this question has been effectively resolved for the moment, it is high time to deal with a matter that is equally important and pressing: the funding of students.
There are two quite separate aspects to this problem. One, which is fairly well known, is the question of access to third-level by those from less well-off families. The other, which has had very little attention, is the fundamental threat to quality that is posed by students being forced to finance their study through excessive part-time working. Let me focus first on the lesser-known issue.
In these days of free fees, it is tempting to assume that going to university poses no financial challenge for the vast bulk of middle-class students. In fact, the very reverse is the case.
Fees account for only a fraction of the total cost of keeping a student at college. Of much greater importance is the student's living costs, which have at least kept pace with the increases in inflation over recent years, and which have been made worse by lifestyle changes such as the emergence of mobile phones as a virtual necessity of life. The 60 per cent of students who do not live at home have been caught up in our housing boom, and as a result have to pay sky-high rents that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Transport costs, which have increased beyond the general level of prices, are also an important element in the student budget.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) estimates the average burden of living costs to be in the region of €6,400 a year per student living away from home. A DCU study arrived at a figure that was even higher. Small wonder, therefore, that a recent survey has nearly one-third of students reporting that their financial situation is bad, including one in 10 who say it is very bad.
The main response by students to this financial challenge has been to increase the amount of time they spend on part-time work. More than half of our students now engage in part-time work during the college term. The working student has, of course, always been a feature of education at third level, but until recently the balance between work and study had proved manageable without serious threat to the education part of the equation. Now, however, all the indications are that the balance has shifted decisively, to an extent that seriously threatens the quality of the education students get.
Today students are spending more and more time in part-time work, often working more than 20 hours a week. It should come as no surprise that their attendance at lectures suffers and their concentration on studies is adversely affected. Lower grades and higher drop-out rates are among the undesirable outcomes.
The situation with middle-class students is replicated in the case of those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. True, disadvantaged students benefit from a local authority maintenance grant, but the truth is that this grant - even topped up to the maximum for the most needy - has always been inadequate for its intended purpose. As living costs escalate, the gap between what a disadvantaged student gets and what he or she needs gets wider by the month. Again not surprisingly, the only way open to these students to fill the gap is part-time working.
So, whether middle-class or disadvantaged, a substantial number of our students are forced into working to an extent that clearly interferes with their studies. I believe this should be of equal concern to the third-level institutions (who have a strong interest in maintaining academic quality) and to the Government (which now recognises that the quality of our graduates is a vital factor in creating future prosperity).
Fortunately, this problem is not intractable. In fact, once the issue is recognised and a determination to address it is developed, solutions suggest themselves quite readily. International experience suggests that a good way of meeting students' financial challenges is through a system of student loans.
What we should aim for is that all students have access to living-cost loans which they would repay as graduates at a proportion of their salary (say, 9 per cent) over a stated minimum (say, €20,000). Repayments could be collected through the PAYE system. The interest rate could be the rate at which Government borrows money, plus a small amount (say, 1 per cent) to cover administration and non-collection. The maximum amount borrowable would be pegged at the estimated out-of-pocket expenses that students incur.
Students who currently qualify for means tested maintenance grants would continue to qualify for them. But they would now have the option to supplement their inadequate grant with a loan.
At a stroke, a scheme like this would remove the pressure on students to work excessively. It would not eliminate part-time work by students, but it will give them a choice, which many do not now have, to work or not to work during term time.
Financial pressures would also be reduced for parents of all students. This factor alone is likely to make such a solution highly attractive to Government, especially with a general election on the horizon.
Danny O'Hare is a former president of Dublin City University
