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Fees anxiety hangs over third-level applicants
Sunday, January 18, 2009 By Martha Kearns
The country’s 53,000 Leaving Certificate students have important decisions to make this week as they fill in their CAO application forms for college.

However, they are lacking one vital piece of information which could determine whether they go to college - will they have to pay fees? Students already know they face an increase in registration charges which will average around €1,500, as against €900 last year. But they still don’t know if they will have to pay some form of student contribution when they start this year, or during their remaining years at college.

While it is clear that students will, in future, have to pay some form of contribution to third level education, it is not yet known when that will be introduced, whom it will affect and how much it will be.

Education minister Batt O’Keeffe believes that those who can afford it should pay. Officials at his department are preparing a report on the options, and this will be presented to the government in April.

The proposals are likely to include deferred loans, graduate taxes and straight fees - as well as a combination of those options.

The minister will then present his preferred option to cabinet in the first two weeks of April. Department sources said O’Keeffe was keeping an open mind until the report was concluded. There is no doubt, however, that he will be proposing some form of a return to fees. Who would be required to pay the fees has not yet been discussed, although there has been speculation that those with a total household income of more than €100,000 would be liable.

Timeframes for the introduction of fees have also yet to be decided but some sources believe the report is being completed in spring to give the department and the third-level institutions time to introduce the new system at the start of the 2009/ 2010 term in the autumn.

The Irish Universities Association (IUA), however, believes it is unlikely there will be any change for those entering university in 2009, apart from the registration charge increase, as there was no provision for fees made in the budget.

The IUA, which represents the country’s seven universities, said it was waiting to see what the minister decided to do in relation to 2010. The IUA Council (which includes the seven university heads and the IUA chief executive) prepared a paper on the issue of fees in which it said there was a resourcing problem in higher education and that funding exclusively through general taxation was regressive.

It believed some form of contribution should be introduced and said that a pure fees system - because of its capacity to generate a revenue stream at an early stage - was worth looking at, while a fees/ loans system also had a number of advantages.

Last Thursday, the heads of Trinity College, Dublin City University and University College Cork stepped up their campaigns for the return of third-level fees to cope with the financial shortfalls in the universities’ budgets.

UCC president Dr Michael Murphy said there were ‘‘no rules for coping with this financial situation. In November, we estimated a shortfall of €11.5million.Then it was €12 million and now the bursar has told me we are a further €4 million down,” he said.

The reasons the minister wants to re-introduce fees - which were cut in the 1990s by former Labour education minister Niamh Bhreathnach - are, he says, to prioritise supports for disadvantaged students to increase their participation, as well as increase funding for the third-level institutions. ‘‘The policy decisions that we take over the coming months will be important in addressing those requirements,” he told The Sunday Business Post.

The minister also believes that the sector relies far too much on the exchequer as its principal source of revenue. A bout €2 billion is being invested by the government in third-level education this year.

O’Keeffe said there was a strong argument, given the country’s economic circumstances and the government tightening of resources, that those who could afford to contribute to the costs of higher education should be asked to do so. He said this was a well-established principle internationally and an important element of funding in education systems around the world.

However, students disagree, with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) accusing him of being misguided and out of touch with everyday concerns of students and their families.

About 10,000 third-level students protested last October against the more than 50 per cent increase in the student registration charge and the threat to reintroduce fees. They also joined protests against budget cuts across the entire education sector which were held throughout the country up to Christmas. Another protest on the issue is to be held in Waterford on Wednesday and a national demonstration is scheduled for the Dáil on February 4.

The average cost of going to third-level college has been put at just over €38,000 for a four-year degree term. U SI president Shane Kelly says this cost would ‘‘almost inevitably rise to beyond €70,000, making higher education an unaffordable luxury for most average families’’.

Kelly said there were serious concerns about the proposals and the uncertainty for students applying for college this year.

‘‘There has been a surge of people applying - people who might not have applied for another year or two - because they fear that fees will be introduced next year. It would be very difficult to see how fees could be introduced to those already in college and, if they were, we would go all the way to the High Court to protect our members,” he said.

It has been argued that the abolition of fees was an important factor in increasing participation at third level. But, O’Keeffe said the evidence was ‘‘somewhat inconclusive on that front’’.

‘‘The rate of increase in participation has not accelerated in the main target groups as a result of free fees. Investments in access programmes, student grants and other direct student supports are more significant factors in promoting participation among lower socioeconomic groups,” he said.

‘‘It can be argued that resources used to subsidise those who can afford to contribute to their own higher education would be better directed in enhancing supports for those who cannot.”

O’Keeffe said that in spite of the considerable improvement in participation rates among lower socioeconomic groups. Postal districts or parental income remained good indicators of the likelihood of someone progressing to third level.

Department figures show that the entry rate to third-level education for children from skilled manual backgrounds was 50 per cent in 2004 (up from 32 per cent in 1998). Some 33 per cent of children from semi and unskilled manual backgrounds went on to third-level in the same year (up from23 per cent), and 27 per cent of those from non manual backgrounds went on to third-level (up from 29 per cent).

This compares with those at the higher end of the socioeconomic sector where figures show that all children from higher professional backgrounds went to college in both 1998 and 2004.T he IUA also believes that access has not benefited meaningfully from the removal of fees. O’Keeffe added that the continued development of the higher education system was ‘‘critical’’ for Ireland’s future.’ ‘We cannot afford to lose ground now in this highly competitive global knowledge market,” he said.

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