Students have never had it so easy. It’s a line we hear all the time. The airwaves hum with complaints on radio shows about students spending too much money on drink and entertainment because free education means they have nothing to do with the loot earned from part-time jobs.
It might be true in the odd case, but for most students going to college this year, that stereotype is now a bit of a sick joke.
Free education is no more. Students applying for full-time third level courses now have to pay a minimum Registration Fee of €775 – a figure which can rise to €850, depending on the college.
So how has it come to this? Free fees were introduced in 1995. An accompanying ‘registration’ or ‘capitation’ fee that students would have to pay was set at £150. This fee was to go towards the cost of administration and student services – such as health, student unions, sports activities and clubs.
In 2001 registration was €396 – an increase already well ahead of the rate of inflation. But that took another major hike to €650 in 2004 and stands at €775 this year. That represents a 90% increase in just three years.
With these extra charges at the disposal of the colleges, you’d assume that students must now have access to top quality services like gyms, sports halls, student centres, health support units, libraries etc. But the reality is very different. Just as in other areas of the public sector, students are suffering cut-backs in services.
Charges were introduced last year for a visit to the student doctor. There are waiting lists to see counsellors. Basic services are falling apart in many colleges.
The problem is that government under-funding has plunged colleges into a financial crisis. According to the available figures, overall, colleges suffered a €50 million shortfall last year. Ireland, meanwhile, has one of the lowest levels of investment in education among the industrialised countries (we spend 4.7% of GDP on education compared to Sweden 6.8%).
As a result, colleges use the ‘registration’ fee to fill the funding gap and to cover day-to day costs. The Department of Education has admitted that it has no plans to address this funding crisis. So students are stuck with what we might as well be honest and call rising fees, and simultaneously with cuts to services.
The fact that the fee now stands at close to €1,000 means that many students from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are not applying for college – and that those who do make it are struggling to get by.
The fee is paid for anyone who is in receipt of the student maintenance grant. But less than a quarter of all students receive this. In order to get the grant, the cut-off income point is €42,360. Therefore, if both partners in a two-income family are on the average industrial wage (€27,000 pa), their child does not qualify.
According to student unions, increasing numbers fall just outside the grant qualification limit – and many cannot afford college as a result. Stephanie O’Brien, Welfare Officer of the Students’ Union in Trinity College in Dublin, underlines the effect of what is really the return of fees by stealth.
“For many Irish students the registration fee is a huge financial burden,” she says. “The increase this year of e25 may not seem like a lot, but a fee of e775 is sizeable. We have already seen students in serious distress coming into the union, wondering where this money is going to come from.
“Many students are already paying back loans and debts, forcing them to get two jobs to raise the money,” she adds. “Others will borrow from one lending institution or another and spend the next year with debt hanging over them.”
Kate, who studies Spanish and Archaeology at NUI Galway points out that life is difficult, even for people on the grant. “The grant is insufficient given the cost of housing, materials, books etc.” she insists. “Many of us live off noodles for dinner most days. One friend from Tallaght could only attend college because she got a scholarship. Not one of her classmates went to college.
“Another friend gets the full grant – which just covers the rent,” she adds. “She couldn’t go to college in first year. She had to take a year out to make the money in order to go. Everyone knows an example like that.”
The reality is that the majority of students work during term time because they have to in order to survive. Often there isn’t enough time to study, leading to high levels of stress. Drop-out rates are increasing. Over 30% of students are not completing courses in some colleges. Overall, of first-time college entrants last year, 17% did not complete the course.
Kate, along with many students, feels that the registration fee is effectively a return to fees by the back door.
“It’s a con job. It’s dividing education again,” she says, “making it tiered between those who can pay can and those who cannot. Unfortunately though, students are not mobilising themselves to oppose it. No one is leading and getting students to pull together to actually fight this.”
“The union is not representing us,” she argues. “A lot of unions are quite right-wing and conservative and using their positions as career stepping-stones. Students are not listened to and then get disillusioned. In Galway, it’s getting to the stage where the union has lost the respect of students.”
Jane Horgan-Jones, education officer of UCD Students’ Union, agrees. “The registration fee is less of a fund to generate student services and more a way of government bringing in back door fees,” she insists. “This is why the student movement has to be vigilant. We are now facing the prospect of the fee being over €1,000. The student movement has to stop focussing on rises in the fee and focus on the bigger picture – which is that students shouldn’t have to pay this at all.
“Contrary to the view that students are apathetic I believe that students do care. There is no reason why protests can’t stop this fee, just like protests stopped the attempt to re-introduce fees in 2003. This should be the aim of USI. If the unions get organised, then we can achieve things.”
Recent restructuring of colleges to suit big companies’ interests, the threats of the return of fees and talk of privatisation indicates that, philosophically as well as practically, free public education is becoming a thing of the past.
Protest and student activism is clearly needed if education is to become equal and available to all – and not just a luxury that is designed for the better-off. You have been warned.
Pic: Graham Keogh