Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 October 2020
117. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the mechanism or criteria for distributing the student hardship fund announced as part of budget 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31361/20]
View answer483. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the way in which the proposed €50 million student assistance fund proposed in budget 2021 will be administered; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31288/20]
View answer484. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if part-time students will have access to the €50 million student assistance fund proposed in budget 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31289/20]
View answer503. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the way in which the €50 million hardship fund will be distributed to the students that are in the most need. [31772/20]
View answerI believe the Minister already answered this question having regard to the distribution of the student hardship fund announced as part of budget 2021. I very much welcome that. I welcome the fact that the Minister says the funding can go towards the student contribution fee because so many people are excluded from Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grants. I am aware that the SUSI grant needs to be increased as it has not been increased since 2012 but I am trying to capture the people who are in genuine financial difficulty and who are still not eligible for a SUSI grant.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 117, 483, 484 and 503 together.
I announced on budget day the intention to have a full review of SUSI, which the Deputy has been calling for. It will start this year and conclude next summer. It is badly needed so we can plan in advance of the next budget what student supports need to look like now. SUSI has worked pretty well as a scheme but equally I believe things have moved on and the scheme needs to adjust.
The two areas I am considering in regard to the €50 million student support scheme are the once-off SUSI top-up and a small rebate. The fund is €50 million. Obviously, the greater the number of students, the smaller the amount per student but, roughly speaking, dividing €50 million by the number of full-time higher education students, 200,000, gives about €250 each. The SUSI top-up and a potential rebate to an account one paid one's contribution fee out of probably comprise the most straightforward approach but we will make a firm decision on that in the coming days.
I thank the Minister. I welcome any opportunity to ease the financial burden on students. We need to lower the high student fees. Our success story for further education would be that nobody would have to be awake at night worrying about whether he or she could send a child to college. We have to make it affordable and examine people's real-life financial circumstances. We cannot have circumstances in which people who are very capable of doing all types of third level courses must make a decision not to do one because of the financial impact on their family. The hardship fund is one way of addressing this. I am aware that the Minister will acknowledge that this is only a tiny part of the journey we need to travel.
I acknowledge that. How to do it in a sustainable manner is a question all of us in this House will have to face up to. This is not a partisan comment but I do believe there has been a generation of political cowardice in regard to the question of a sustainable funding model for higher education. We have the Cassells report. The previous Oireachtas, on an all-party basis, asked for an economic evaluation.
It is currently under way with the input of the European Commission and it is due back at the start of 2021. The year 2021 should be the year where we try to settle that question. I have my own views, which I shared with the Deputy at the Oireachtas education committee. I am very nervous of the student loan model because I think that can be a barrier, real and perceived, in terms of the level of debt people are taking on at a very early stage in life. I will await the outcome of the report which, as I said, is due at the start of 2021.
I share the Minister's concerns about the student loan model. We need to get this model right such that it will serve students and their families. We need to do that as a matter of urgency and we need to look at education as an investment and not purely a cost. We do not want our students to be leaving college, or worse still to be forced to drop out of college, because of financial circumstances. I look forward to working with the Minister on it.
In my haste, I passed over Deputy Durkan's question. We will return to Question No. 104.
