Gerald Nash
Question:1256. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the estimated cost to the State of increasing SUSI grants by 10%. [39748/21]
View answerTuesday, 27 July 2021
Questions (1256)
Written answers
The annual spend for the 2020/21 academic year on maintenance grants as of end June 2021 was in the region of €160M.
Based on the number of students in receipt of the maintenance grant for 2020/21, the estimated cost of increasing all rates of the maintenance grant by 10% is in the region of €16.5M.
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.