Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 May 2022
97. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the steps that he is taking to support students and parents with the cost-of-living crisis, making particular reference to the 25% increase to SUSI recommended in the recently published SUSI review and any plans to reduce student fees for the upcoming academic year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25389/22]
View answerWhen will the paper on the cost of third level education be published? I want to talk to the Minister about SUSI and the supports for students and parents in the context of the cost-of-living crisis. I make particular reference to the 25% increase to the SUSI grant, as recommended in the recently published SUSI review. Does he have plans to reduce fees for the upcoming academic year? I sincerely welcome his recognition that the current level of fees is an austerity measure that cannot continue. Will he elaborate on that?
The honest answer to the question as to when we will publish the paper is that it will be in advance of the budget. I will get the Deputy a more specific answer than that. It will be in enough time for Sinn Féin's alternative budget or pre-budget submissions and for me to begin to grapple with and discuss these issues. One imagines it will be published in the autumn but I will provide the Deputy with a more specific time. In truth, we have not decided yet but I will come back to her on that.
Addressing the costs of education for students and families is a major priority for me. Cost cannot be a barrier for working families getting their children into college. That is why I commissioned a review of the student grant scheme when I took up office, which was published on 4 May. The review involved wide stakeholder engagement, an extensive consultation with students and research into the costs of higher education. The review identified a number of issues, including the rising costs affecting students over the past decade; the fact that the income thresholds for eligibility in the scheme have not kept pace with the rise of earnings over the same period; particular costs, which the Deputy will know well from her constituency, for those who travel long distances to their place of education; and the costs associated with postgraduate study.
We have taken some steps already to alleviate financial pressures, which helps to tackle issues raised in the student grant review. There will be an increase in the grant payment for all those in receipt of a maintenance grant by €200 from September. We have increased the qualifying thresholds by €1,000 to bring more people into the grant scheme. Importantly, and this was the most important change introduced, we changed the qualifying distance for the non-adjacent rate of grant to help students who live further away from college. We have increased the postgraduate fee grant, from €2,000 to €3,500, as well as the postgraduate fee grant income threshold. All of these measures are very much in line with and are a commencement of the implementation of the student grant review.
I have committed to publishing an annual costs of education paper, which will set out the range of options to address costs, including changes to both the student grant scheme and student contributions. This will seek to inform decision-making at budget time regarding what further measures we can take to continue to support students and their families. Last year, from memory I believe we received a funding package of approximately €30 million to invest in additional student supports. We largely put that into the SUSI grant scheme. I expect we will receive another funding package for student supports and we will grapple with and discuss, in this House and elsewhere, how best to spend that in a way that support students and families.
Students and their families almost have announcement fatigue at this stage because measures are announced over and over again. They know how much money they have in their pocket or household budget because they are facing a cost-of-living crisis.
Some of it has been driven by international events, though the SUSI review highlights that the greatest burden comes from the cost of rent and the housing crisis, which is a domestic crisis. The SUSI review states that there needs to be a 25% increase in the maintenance grant, which is far more than the planned €200 increase. The entire planned increase of the student maintenance grant of €200, announced last October and to be introduced this September, will be completely eaten up by inflation before students even see it. That is why I called on the Minister, at the time, to bring the increase into effect immediately to help ease the burden, as inflation was already putting real pressure on families. The Minister refused to take that practical step. This was supposed to be a small step towards taking SUSI out of austerity mode. Now, with inflation at 6.7% or higher students will be worse off, in real terms, come September, despite the increase. Students and families are really anxious about what is going to happen this September.
I thank the Deputy. The SUSI grant review is an extremely important piece of work. It provides us with absolute clarity on the key issues that students and other stakeholders wish to see us address in better supporting students and their families in this country. Even in advance of publishing the review, we had begun to make progress on those recommendations. We introduced a very significant reduction to the distance criteria. That means that many students will qualify for a lot more than an extra €200 in their grant. Some students will actually see their grant rise by over 25% as a result of that change, particularly students, I would suggest, living in rural and provincial Ireland who are travelling long distances to get to college. We have begun to cost the measures of implementing the scheme. I am happy to share that with the Deputy. I am sure the information will be useful for her own work. If we were to go ahead and increase the level of the student grant by 25% from the 2021 maintenance rates, as recommended in the review, the cost would be €43.6 million. I genuinely believe that the findings and recommendations of the student grant scheme review are deliverable. Are all of them deliverable in one year and one budget? They are simply not. However, we can make significant progress in the forthcoming budget. I believe we can get through a lot of those recommendations in the lifetime of this Government, and make a real and substantial difference.
I ask the Minister to do everything possible. I hear his sentiments on not excluding students from education. I am fearful that people's choices will be greatly reduced because of the high cost of accommodation and the high cost of accessing third level education. I fear that students will need to work while they study and am concerned about what that will do in terms of outcomes for students. We really need to concentrate our focus on the matter. Inflation is now at 6.7%. We see that in Britain, it has risen to 9%. I would not be surprised at all if we are at double-digit levels of inflation by the end of this year. The severe impact of that cannot be underestimated, particularly for families who perhaps have two or three students going to college, and some going to secondary school. We, in opposition, will work with the Minister. We need to work collectively to do everything possible to alleviate that burden on students and families.
I will certainly work with the Deputy and others in the House on the issue. In terms of context, I think it is important to note that we live in a country where more than four out of ten students receive student grants and more than four out of ten students do not pay the €3,000 registration fee. I say that because I often worry that a secondary school student might be listening to the debate and wondering if he or she can go to college. It is important to note that around 42% of students receive financial assistance in respect of the registration fee. We have taken other measures that benefit students. One of the most significant measures was introduced by my colleague, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, namely, the reduction in public transport fares. While there is a reduction for the population at large, there is a 50% reduction for people under the age of 24, many of whom will be students. We are definitely agreed that we need to do more and that budget 2023 will need to do more. I will certainly work with the Deputy in the House to do that, and to advocate across Government for it to happen.
