Richard Bruton
Question:178 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science the estimated cost of increasing the income thresholds for a higher education grant by £8,500 in all cases. [27369/01]
Written Answers. - Higher Education Grants.
Richard Bruton
Question:179 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science the cost of increasing the higher education maintenance grant for adjacent students to £1,500 and for non-adjacent students to £3,000. [27370/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 178 and 179 together.
Recent practice has been to increase reckonable income limits for maintenance grant schemes in line with changes in the average industrial wage and to increase maintenance grants at least in line with inflation. The calculation of the effect of these increases is a complex exercise and the cost of an increase of £8,500, 10,793, in the income limits is not readily available. However, based on the 2000 reckonable income limits, the Economic and Social Research Institute has carried out an exercise for my Department which estimates that the cost of increasing the reckonable income thresholds for maintenance grants by 50%, i.e. by about £10,100 or 12,824, would be £124.4 million, 158 million.
Based on maintenance grant levels for 2001, the estimated cost of increasing the non-adjacent and adjacent rate of the grants to £1,500, 1,905, and £3,000, 3,809, respectively, in respect of the four student support schemes, would be approximately £54 million, 68.6 million. The estimate assumes that other variables, such as the numbers of grant holders, remain unchanged.