Fiona (not her real name) is in her second year at university. Her family is a single income one - Dad's a teachers and Mum has always stayed at home. They're not too a badly off, but with four kids in full-time education, money's extremely tight.
A struggle, her parents would say. Fiona's father earns more than the £22,200 income that would entitle her to a maintenance grant. Her best friend at college, however, gets a grant. Imagine Fiona's surprise when she learned that her friend gets a full grant, despite the fact that her family lives in a large country house and there appears to be no shortage of cash. She and her siblings all have new cars - some of them four-wheel drives. How do they do it? It's a question lots of people have been asking for years. If you think that tales of the rich getting grants to go to college and the less well-off and the downright poor getting nothing are apocryphal, think again. A recent report on the social background of entrants to higher education by UCD's Dr Pat Clancy shows that a striking number of potentially high-income earners avail of means-tested maintenance grants.
According to the Clancy report, about 8 per cent of the offspring of the top social group - employers and managers - going to third level are in receipt of grants. Similarly, just over 5 per cent of the children of higher professionals also get grants. Meanwhile, just under one-third of farmers' children entering college are eligible for maintenance grants. While there are certainly many low-income farmers, the Clancy report shows that more than one-fifth of the children of families farming between 100 and 199 acres are in receipt of maintenance grants, while 12 per cent of students from farms larger than 200 acres are also grant recipients. Meanwhile, college access officers will tell you that many students from very poor areas of Dublin are unaware that they are eligible for grants.
Over a year ago, some £95 million was earmarked for third-level access under the National Development Plan. al Martin indicated that up to £1,000 increases in the maintenance grant would be paid to students whose families were on social welfare. In September, the new Minister, Dr Michael Woods announced an increase in the maintenance grants "targeted at disadvantaged students most in need". He increased the full nonadjacent maintenance grant to £2,000 (up from £1,775) and the adjacent rate to £1,000 (up from £710), for targeted students. Given that it costs students living away from home around £5,000 to go to college, these increases were greeted with derision. The extra top-up grants will be paid this month, according to the Department of Education and Science.
The Minister also established an action group to get more disadvantaged students into third level. The action group will set out the criteria which will determine who will receive the extra grants. The Minister said about 10,000 students will qualify for extra cash According to the Department, eligible students will receive it automatically.
It is understood that the action group has been examining the whole grant issue and it is expected that it will make further recommendations on grants. Failing to recommend a revised and improved scheme would be extremely controversial at this stage.
"I have a major concern about the size of the grant," says DCU's director of student affairs, Barry Kehoe. "As it stands, it's not a grant, it's a supplement. From our work in north Dublin, we see a group of low-paid workers who are receiving no supports - they're paying mortgages and high transport costs. They have no access to supplementary welfare allowances or to medical cards. This group is really hurting financially. "Welfare recipients, though needy, have a high profile and are easier to identify. Whatever is done in a targeted fashion must be done against a background of a much better national system of grant support, which has fair criteria and a much higher maximum grant."
Kehoe points to the erosion of the maintenance grant. "Since 1982, we have had inflation of 121 per cent, but the grant has only increased by 77 per cent." Recent student lifestyle surveys have set alarm bells ringing in some quarters and could have a negative effect on Government decisions on student grants. According to a UCD student survey carried out for the College Tribune, some 18,000 UCD students spend almost £23 million annually on alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. Whatever the spending, the fact remains that some students are caught in a poverty trap, Kehoe says.
"We find that there are two categories of students who have part-time jobs. There are those who work to support expensive lifestyles and there are those who work simply to survive. This second group are the people who are on or below subsistence level."
