Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 June 2021
354. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the estimated cost to the Exchequer of extending SUSI to cover the full cost of fees for all students eligible for support based on current SUSI thresholds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34027/21]
View answerUnder my Department’s free fees schemes, the Exchequer provides funding toward the tuition fee costs of eligible full-time undergraduate students with students paying the student contribution fee. Combined maximum of €6,270. It is important to note in relation to this issue that under the Free Fees Schemes the Exchequer currently makes a very substantial contribution amounting to €340m to meeting the tuition fee costs of eligible undergraduate Higher Education students.
However, undergraduates in receipt of the SUSI grant have their student contribution paid on their behalf. For the 2020/21 academic year, 61,621 undergraduate students received 100% student contribution and a further 3,914 undergraduate students received 50% student contribution. Total cost to the Exchequer of €192.3m.
Most Irish and EU undergraduate students can expect to pay between €4,000 and €7,500 in student contribution and tuition fees. For the purposes of this calculation, if all undergraduate students in receipt of SUSI support were to pay maximum fees of €7,500. The total cost to the Exchequer would be in the region of €80.6m.
With regards to Post Graduates. EU and EEA Post Graduate students can expect the cost for a year of full time study to be between €4,000 and €9,000. There were 2,518 students in receipt of a SUSI grant for the academic year at a cost to the exchequer of €9.13m. For the purposes of this calculation, if all post graduates students were to pay maximum fees of €9,000 the additional cost to the exchequer would be in the region of €13.53m.
The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy. At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect.
