Vol. 409 No. 8
4 Mrs. T. Ahearn asked the Minister for Education the steps she intends to take to (a) remedy the injustices in the higher education grant scheme and (b) ensure that students, whose parents have a modest income, will be eligible for the higher education grant and will not be forced to turn down a place in a third level college due to lack of financial resources; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
My Department review the higher education grants scheme on an annual basis in the light of their experience of its operation. I am aware of the difficulties facing some parents with children in third level education and this is a matter which is examined from year to year.
It should be noted that the means test tables of the scheme are so framed as to give greater financial assistance to students — I know the Deputy is aware of this — from low income families. The income limits were tapered in 1985. Indeed the tapering mechanism and the indexing of grants in line with the consumer price index were the two major achievements at that level of the former Minister, Mrs. Hussey. From that time students who were previously ineligible for a full or partial maintenance grant could become eligible for a grant of fees or partial fees. Moreover, despite the budgetary constraints of recent years, I have increased the income eligibility limits and rates of maintenance grant payable in line with increases in the consumer price index. The grants have also increased in line with tuition fee charges.
I was very pleased to have been able to correct a long standing anomaly in 1990, by reducing the number of honours required from four to two, under the higher education grants scheme. Prospective third level students from low income families who satisfy the reduced Leaving Certificate attainment and other requirements will not be forced to turn down the offer of a third level place due to a lack of a higher education grant. This improvement was widely welcomed.
I wish to assure the Deputy that it has been my objective to ensure that the higher education grants scheme is as equitable as possible.
At present over 50 per cent of students in HEA third level colleges are in receipt of grant aid. In VEC colleges the figure is in the order of 90 per cent. These figures indicate the extent to which third level access is already being facilitated by the various schemes of financial assistance to students.
In the context of the PESP the question of developing more equitable income assessment criteria for all applicants under the scheme, including mature applicants, is being considered.
Does the Minister agree that the present income threshold for higher education grants is too low and that families who fall within the threshold cannot afford realistically to send their child to third level education? Statistics have proven that the method of income assessment favours the self-employed. Have her Department any plans to remedy the injustice this causes for the PAYE sector because fewer children of parents on PAYE are eligible for grants?
This Government, in line with previous Governments, have striven always to do what they can within budgetary circumstances. The income eligibility limits have been increased in line with the consumer price index each year. This was done despite the very severe difficulties, and it looked as if it might not have been able to be done. The increase in funding from the European Social Fund means that the number eligible has increased from 30 per cent in 1985 to 90 per cent today, which is a remarkable increase.
I will now deal with the other questions the Deputy raised. In 1983 the expenditure on the higher education grant scheme was £8 million, but in the year just past it was £27 million, which was a huge increase. The Deputy raised the question of the seeming disparity in the numbers who qualify for higher education grants from the self-employed sector and the PAYE sector. There is a long standing perception of inequity and I feel there are some grounds for that. At present an interdepartmental group are looking very rigorously at the various ways in which entitlements are granted by the various Departments. There would need to be across the board agreement on matters such as this. It is my view that common criteria for various entitlements would need to be very correctly worked out. On that point let me add that the Deputy's colleague seeks to put forward the opposite view in a question that will arise later on the Order Paper, but I bear the Deputy's point out.
Do the Department intend to do anything for families with more than one child in college? Some families have to make very difficult decisions when the second or third child is offered a place in college. They may have to defer the place or not allow their child to accept it because they cannot afford it. Would the Minister agree that the greatest injustice is that parental income is not means tested to grant-aid students at regional colleges while it is at higher education colleges and have her Department any plans to remedy that injustice?
I would not call this an injustice because the money to fund this scheme comes from Europe, who apply their own criteria, and at present the ratio is 65:35; but the other colleges are funded completely by the State. To remedy this situation would require many millions and if the Deputy could tell me where that could be got I would gladly approve of it.
Successive Governments have seen fit to give a huge increase in the allocation to the higher education grant scheme but the influx of money from Europe has meant that up to 90 per cent of students in regional colleges obtain a grant for full tuition fees and a varying maintenance grant depending on where one resides. The Deputy raised the difficulties families experience when two or more children are at university or a third level institution. Many families are finding it very difficult to cope with this burden and at present we are looking at it in the Department and working out the likely financial implications of it.
