One-in-five 'wealthy' families gets grant for college

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http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/oneinfive-wealthy-families-gets-grant-for-college-2033076.html

ONE in five children from professional families is getting a maintenance grant to go to college.

A new ESRI study also shows that over half of farmers' children get higher education grants.

The revelation is likely to provoke demands for long-promised reform of the grants scheme, which was set up to help less well-off families send their children to college.

Sources said that some farmers and professionals -- such as accountants, lawyers and engineers -- were able to use the rules to reduce their reckonable income to qualify for a grant for their children.

But this option is not available to hard-pressed PAYE taxpayers.

The study comes as applications for college jump 5,300 this year, with the CAO deadline looming on February 1.

By midnight on Monday, 52,747 applications had been lodged compared with 47,448 at the same time last year.

The increase will push up the points for many degree courses in the universities and put colleges under strain to take in additional students.

At present one in three students -- or around 52,000 a year -- are in receipt of a full or partial grant.

Under the grant system, families with three or fewer children and with income of below €41,100 get a full grant for a child in college.

A full grant is worth €3,420 for a student living away from home and €1,370 for a student living at home.

However, the ESRI says that grant payments have fallen behind jobseekers' allowances and industrial earnings levels with the result that the standard of living for students is likely to have fallen behind the rest of the population. Grant levels have been covering less of the cost of participating in college, it says.

The researchers found that the proportion of full-time students in receipt of grants dropped by nearly a third between 1992 and 2004.

The drop was across all social groups, but despite this more than half of farmers' children and a fifth of children of professionals were in receipt of grants.

One of the main researchers involved, Dr Selina Scott, said there seemed to have been little change in those proportions over the past five or six years.

The others ESRI researchers were Emma Calvert, Emer Smyth and Merike Darmody.

But USI president Peter Mannion said more information was needed on the size of the grants awarded to children of professionals and farmers.

It may be that many, if not most, qualified for only a quarter or half the maintenance award, instead of the full amount. A quarter of the grant is only €855 for those away from home and €345 for those at home.

The ESRI study was carried out for the Higher Education Authority (HEA), which said grants should be targeted at those most in need.

"The minister and the HEA have disadvantaged access to higher education as one of our top priorities. We expect that the forthcoming student support bill will assist in reform of the grant system," said a spokesperson for the HEA.

- John Walshe

Thank christ the independent has carried this story,it is well known that those who dont need it get it,well done for publishing it,i know we have no way in hell of reforming this due to influence of voting power some of these people have

ANXIOUS

I've always felt that the grant system should be reformed. Does anyone know if you can find the break down by college of how many students recieve grants. I've tried googling it to no avail.

Bottle_of_Smoke

No one should get a grant. The government should give maintennance loans to people that only have to be paid back when the student is in employment.

jimmycrackcorm

The other side of the coin is that the wealthy contribute more in tax to support people on SW. Why should their kids be discriminated against for education grants...

ei.sdraob

jimmycrackcorm1 wrote: »

The other side of the coin is that the wealthy contribute more in tax to support people on SW. Why should their kids be discriminated against for education grants...

see sig

dvpower

jimmycrackcorm1 wrote: »

The other side of the coin is that the wealthy contribute more in tax to support people on SW. Why should their kids be discriminated against for education grants...

Yeah. Lets all have grants. We can fund them from the pots of gold at the ends of our rainbows.:rolleyes:

sceptre

the Indo article wrote:

Sources said that some farmers and professionals -- such as accountants, lawyers and engineers -- were able to use the rules to reduce their reckonable income to qualify for a grant for their children.

But this option is not available to hard-pressed PAYE taxpayers.

Er, that's not news. Or new. Or even surprising. Basically they're saying that some self-employed people including some farmers are able to fiddle their books so their children get a college grant. I started my first degree programme in 1993 and it wasn't news then either. Or new. Or surprising.

Then on the other side of the coin, there there's a small number of people under 23 who are genuinely independently self-supporting and can't get assessed for a grant as that section of the current legislation, which would allow them to be assessed firmly but fairly has never been implemented. It's also in the student support bill, which last I heard was languishing in the committee stage in 2008.

Nothing new here. Not that it makes it right of course but it's nothing new or surprising. The fault lies in the assessment, which has always been faulty and should have been more stringent years ago. So you've got some people who should be able to get it who don't and some people who shouldn't get it who do. Was anyone actually surprised by this?

ei.sdraob

dvpower wrote: »

Yeah. Lets all have grants. We can fund them from the pots of gold at the ends of our rainbows.:rolleyes:

is that what they call borrowing 25 billion euro a year at high interest nowadays?

Firetrap

This old chestnut gets dragged out every now and the but nothing ever happens about it. I personally know families who were poor enough to get full grants for their kids to go to university but managed to find a few coins down the back of the couch that enabled them to buy houses for their kids to live in while they were being educated. Granted, that was in the early to mid 1990s before property prices went crazy but still...

Moro Man

Something wrong with that report...


Only half the farmers get the grant, It use to be about 99.9%

The HorsesMouth

Typical typical typical of the country we've become..let's just screw for every penny we can get even though we can easily afford it.

I know a family who have 3 kids in college. Mother is on an annual salary of 48000(ish) and father is on disability pension and they don't get a cent off government..how is this fair?

Thing is they don't complain,they all have part time jobs and they dont see it as a problem but then when you see that some rich kids are getting grants..it can't be easy to stomach.

jimmycrackcorm1

jimmycrackcorm1 wrote: »

The other side of the coin is that the wealthy contribute more in tax to support people on SW. Why should their kids be discriminated against for education grants...

When I first went to university 10 years ago I couldn't get a grant because both my parents were teachers... Plenty of children of farmers at same time, did.

The policy towards grants both then and now isn't fair across the board. Students with parents with certain "categories" of jobs are still more likely to get grants regardless of the actual incomes involved. It also doesn't help that informal connections & "who you know" comes into it as well.

evercloserunion

ei.sdraob wrote: »

is that what they call borrowing 25 billion euro a year at high interest nowadays?

Define "high"?

brianthebard

Deleted User wrote: »

When I first went to university 10 years ago I couldn't get a grant because both my parents were teachers... Plenty of children of farmers at same time, did.

I don't understand this point, are you claiming that these farmers earned more than your parents?

evercloserunion

Anyway, this is all just getting us prepared for a savage cut in student grants at the next budget. See also the news stories talking about how we spend it all on booze anyway. Gonne be tough year for us.

irishh_bob

Deleted User wrote: »

When I first went to university 10 years ago I couldn't get a grant because both my parents were teachers... Plenty of children of farmers at same time, did.

The policy towards grants both then and now isn't fair across the board. Students with parents with certain "categories" of jobs are still more likely to get grants regardless of the actual incomes involved. It also doesn't help that informal connections & "who you know" comes into it as well.

less than 10% of farmers would earn as much as a teacher