Éamon Ó Cuív on student grants, loans, transport and access
Éamon Ó Cuív addressed student funding, loans, public transport and access to third-level education, welcoming the decision to rule out student loans and calling for contextual increases to grants and postgraduate supports. He argued that many grant and postgraduate rates have only returned to around 2008 levels in nominal terms and urged targeted policy changes on eligibility and transport.
Grants and loan option
He welcomed that the loan option is not on the table and said that saddling graduates with education debt would harm their ability to afford cars, accommodation and mortgages. He highlighted that adjacent and non-adjacent grant rates in 2022 are broadly at 2008 nominal levels and cited figures – adjacent €1,415 and non-adjacent €3,225 in 2022 versus adjacent €1,370 and non-adjacent €3,420 in 2008 – arguing inflation means students have not seen real improvement. He also contrasted postgraduate supports, noting a current postgraduate rate cited as €3,500 (2021) against about €6,270 in 2008-2010, and pointed out the student contribution has risen from €900 in 2008 to €3,000 now.
Eligibility ceilings and mortgage deduction suggestion
He warned that income ceilings for grant eligibility have not kept pace with inflation and proposed that when assessing a parent’s income mortgage or house-rent costs should be deductible from gross income. He suggested limiting how much mortgage could be discounted to prevent abuse while addressing discrepancies between families with similar incomes but very different housing costs.
Student accommodation and late-night transport
He proposed a quick win to ease the student accommodation crisis by improving late-evening public transport from third-level towns. He gave the example of Galway, where services were extended from no buses after 6pm to multiple services until 11pm, enabling students to live outside the city and only stay overnight in town when necessary. He argued this should be supported alongside maintaining a 50% reduction for student fares.
Access to third-level education and the CAO system
He expressed concern about reliance on a single Leaving Cert exam and the "CAO race" determining access to high‑points courses, arguing it disadvantages those without resources. He recommended general first-year courses for high‑demand subjects such as medicine, with selection after the first year to broaden access and equity, noting low participation among certain groups including travellers.
Standards and further concerns
He closed by stressing the need to maintain academic standards and indicated there were further issues he wished to raise, underscoring a broad critique of how funding, eligibility and access policies have evolved since 2008.
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I am pleased to get an opportunity to speak on this issue. There are a lot of different topics I am going to try to cover. The first thing I would like to welcome is that finally the system has been told that their option, and that includes the universities pushing this hard, that the loan option is not on the table. I remember in the notice when I was in Cabinet one summer, it is a good time to try to put a memo through. There was a memo circulated but I was away as it happened, and I sat down and I sent back a very strong note saying that having read the documentation I was totally opposed to the loan option. It is hard enough for young people when they leave college to buy and insure a car and then try to get accommodation and then try to buy accommodation without having been saddled with the cost of education on top of that. I welcome that decision. I welcome that there should be more investment, but I think we have to put it into context. Because the grant rates today are way beneath what they were. For example, the adjacent rate in 2022 will be €1,415 and the non-adjacent rate will be €3,225. In 2008 the same rates, the adjacent rate was €1,370 which is slightly, very, very, ever so slightly smaller, €45 smaller. And the non-adjacent rate was €3,420 which is larger. So in fact, give or take, we are standstill in the new rates to 2008 but there has been a lot of inflation since then and particularly in the last year. The special rate in 2022 is going to be €2,575 and the non-adjacent special rate would be €6,115. And similarly you get the same pattern. In 2008 the adjacent rate was €2,680 which was greater than it is going to be next autumn. And the non-adjacent rate was €6,690 which was €475 or higher. So we are only catching up. So the idea that we are actually improving things is not true. And then we come to the maddest decision, I could never understand this. We are always boasting that higher, higher education, in other words, postdoc, postgraduate education is so vital in this country. In 2022, the adjacent rate is €2,575. Sorry, in 2021 I mean, the postgraduate rate is €3,500. It is a good rise in the 2000. But in 2008 to 2010 it was €6,270. And quite rightly so. Because, you know, when you got your degree, in the old days you would have gone working after you got your degree and very, very few people would have gone on to fourth level education. But now it is very, very common. But people wanted an income at that stage. A lot of them are doing free tutorials and so on. So I think that, you know, this decision that was taken back ten years ago was a bad decision. It was a decision that was never future-proofed. Again, the student contribution is now €3,000. It was €900 in 2008. So, as I said, we need to look at this radically. I think the same pattern would be followed if you looked at the ceilings, the grand ceilings for eligibility. And that they haven't progressed according to inflation. And Minister, on that one, can I make one simple suggestion? I think when you are assessing a parent's income, particularly in the circumstances that people face now, that mortgage or house rent costs should be deductible from the gross income. Because you could have two families that look the same, save £50,000 or £60,000 of an income. And one could have a very large mortgage. And you could put a ceiling on how much mortgage you discount, so you wouldn't have massive places. But the ordinary mortgage, where somebody might have, which would be common enough in certain circumstances, no mortgage. And there is a huge discrepancy between both. There is one way of helping us to solve the student accommodation crisis. And your colleague Eamonn Ryan can do it in a flash of a pen. And that is to give much better radio services out of all the university and third level towns. And I will just give an example of a simple step. Until two years ago, there was no bus leaving Galway that went beyond Nochnacara after six o'clock in the evening. Now, unless student life has changed totally from the time I was in college, students didn't want to go home every night at six o'clock. I mean, they are entitled to a social life. Now, thankfully, in that case, we have got three services up to 11 o'clock at night that are very well patronised. And what that means is that it is possible not to have to get accommodation in the city, and you bunk up the odd night you want to stay overnight, but you don't need five nights a week accommodation. But if the bus services and the public transport services aren't there, then you cannot do this. And I bet you if you do a survey of all of the third level towns around the country, you will find a very, very bad patchy pattern of public bus services out of those towns, particularly in the late evening. And it would be a quick win. We are all the time talking about sustainable travel. And, of course, it would be very, very important that the reduced cost, the 50% reduction for students would be maintained. An issue that concerns me hugely is access to third-level education. We talk about reform in the Leaving Circle. That wouldn't be my concern. It is the CAO race that one exam decides what you get into, whether you become a doctor or whatever, if that is what you choose to be. And that mitigates against people who do not have the resources. That whole system. And I am not sure, I am not sure that it is getting us the best people into professions. I think there should be general courses for the first year in things like medicine and the high points subjects. And then after the first year, the picking will be done. I think it will be much more equitable and give many more people who do not access it. And we know you do a map of third-level access and you will find all the so-called rapid areas we used to have as very low access. You will find travellers as very low access and we need to tackle that issue. Another issue that concerns me is the need to maintain standards. And I would accept that at a very high level of research standards that are high in this country, I am not so convinced that we are not slipping down at the level eight in the general courses. And I think it is absolutely important that we maintain standards and that is high rigid objecting. Other countries had a big dumbing down and it did not do them an awful lot. And we boast about a good education, but remember complacency is always the devil in situations like this. Can I move on to science investment? And again, Science Foundation Ireland was set up to do blue skies research. If we want to attract companies into this country, if we want to attract high level, high end research people into the country, you have to be willing to invest in the future. There was a big move in the early part of the last decade towards applied research, towards getting results, towards working on projects that will give you commercial results. I think we need to look at that again and make sure that this country is doing top level blue skies research. It is a long term investment, there is no immediate return. But remember a lot of the things that we are talking about in the last few years emanated from blue skies research that was going on, that then over time became applied research. But if you are not doing the blue skies, you are not going to attract the top end people. One thing that concerns me is about career guidance for young people. Unfortunately it seems to me that academics seem to have a greater cachet than apprenticeships. And this is a major, major issue and we are paying the price of giving that status. And I think we need to do something about that status difference. And I know work is going on and there is much more prominence now for apprenticeships. But I think that we need to really focus our career guidance on the ability, the interest and the natural direction that a student will go. And that we try to encourage them not to go for the status things. Now my belief is that if you become, for example, let us take it an industrial electrician. The skill level would match some people with a PhD in the modern electronics that they have to be able to deal with. So I think that we need to go up, sell these so that people realise that these are very, very valuable. So I think that there are some great issues that we have in the moment. So we are looking at the future of the project that we have in the modern class, so that we have to do a better job. We know that we are doing a lot of work. We have to work with the work that we have to do, a lot of work. And we have to work with the same這樣 as a really interesting thing. We have to work with the time we have to do, and we have to do that. ...and been asked to be an issue with high-level studies. At the moment, I began to write about the government. It is true that there is no other major and major level of knowledge that comes from. We were all prepared to say that this is the time. We were going to give those questions together. We thought that it was the time for some reason and the time in the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day of the day. And this is what we're talking about. We have a lot of people who are playing this. But we are not even more people who are playing. We're not even more people who are playing this. We are not even playing this. But, you know, we are playing this. We're not going to play this game, we're not going to play. And we're not going to play this game. And I'll never be able to do that. But I'll be able to do that. I'll be able to do that. I'll be able to do that. Thank you.
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