Student grants: Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal students most likely to get payments

School leavers in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal are most likely to get a student grant and those in Meath, Kildare and Dublin least likely, an analysis of third level education funding shows.

Data from Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) shows that a significantly higher proportion of students from Border and farming counties satisfy its means-tested criteria for State payments than students in the greater Dublin area.

In 2013, 733 out of 1,256 new applicants to Susi in Cavan were successful, a rate of 62 per cent. This compared to 53 per cent in Dublin where 7,721 applicants out of 14,660 were successful.

However, given many school leavers self-select and do not applying to Susi on the grounds that they are unlikely to meet the means test criteria, these figures under-represent the disparity between counties.

A more accurate reflection of the rate of success among students in applying for a grant is comparing the number of awards with the number of students who applied to higher-education courses from each county. On this measurement, students from Cavan had a 68 per cent success rate and those from Dublin 44 per cent.

The county which delivered the next highest rate of first-time grants, per CAO applications, was Monaghan (67.5 per cent) followed by Donegal (66 per cent), and Carlow, Limerick, Longford, Leitrim and Mayo (all 63 per cent).

Only 47 per cent of students in Kildare were successful in getting a grant, 48 per cent in Meath, 50 per cent in Wicklow and 53 per cent in Cork.

The pattern was similar in 2012 although Monaghan came out on top with an award rate of 71 per cent. Donegal was next at 70 per cent, then Cavan, Carlow, Leitrim and Mayo (all 68 per cent).

The award rate in Dublin in 2012 was identical to that in 2013 at 44 per cent.

Size of grant

There were more than 68,000 new applicants for grants (as distinct from renewals) through Susi last year and almost 40,000 received awards.

The size of award varies according to family income and the distance which students have to travel to college from their ordinary residence.

To qualify, a family of less than four children must have an income below €52,240. This will guarantee the minimum level of funding of €1,375, or 50 per cent of the annual student contribution. For the same sized family with an income below €39,875, 100 per cent of the contribution is paid along with a maintenance grant of up to €3,025 and the cost of compulsory field trips.

Previous figures from the Higher Education Authority showed that farmers and the self-employed were more than twice as likely to get college grants for their children as PAYE workers.

A 2012 study showed that 40 per cent of farmers and close to 50 per cent of self-employed people secured a college grant for their sons or daughters. This compared to 17 per cent in families headed by a “lower professional”, such as an employer or manager, and 10 per cent among “higher professionals”.

Capital assets

The authority is currently drawing up a new strategy on access to higher education in which the fairness of the grants system is due to come under renewed scrutiny.

Since the 1997 de Buitléir report there have been calls for capital assets such as farms to be taken into account. It concluded that the means test “is defective in that it fails to take full account of ability to pay, particularly since it ignores the accumulated wealth of individuals. Some people with clearly expensive lifestyles obtain grants while others, who are very hard-pressed, lose out.”

The issue was raised in Government last year after former minister for education Ruairí Quinn learnt of a farmer, with €300,000 in the bank, who got a student grant for his child.

Mr Quinn prepared a memo for cabinet proposing that assets above a certain threshold would be considered but Fine Gael blocked it from being brought to cabinet.

Mr Quinn's former advisor John Walshe revealed in his recently-published memoirs, An Education, that Fine Gael vetoed the plan at a meeting of special advisors because of fears of aggravating the farming lobby.

"The meeting went on for two very heated hours but, ultimately, we reached an impasse. Fine Gael would not accept any version of the capital assets test that included farming assets or, for that matter, business assets. Labour couldn't accept any version that didn't," wrote Mr Walshe. The plan was abandoned without a vote.