# Mature Students unfairly taking College Places?



## liaconn (16 Jan 2010)

I see Orna Mulcahy has been annoying people again with her latest Irish Times article (I'm afraid I wasn't able to do the link). The article is entitled 'Should Mature Students be Allowed Go To College?' and suggestss that too many mature students are being allowed into college at the expense of school leavers who really need these places. Just wondering how people feel about this? Personally I think she's talking a load of rubbish and anyone who has the ability to get into University should be equally entitled to a place.


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## aonfocaleile (16 Jan 2010)

Absolute rubbish. Where would the line be drawn or has she raised that in her article? 

What about students from other countries? Universities rely on the substantial fees paid by non-EU students. 

If such a rule was ever introduced, it would be detrimental to the general university experience, which is enriched by increased interaction between people from all walks of life. Not that its likely. Universities would likely baulk at the idea and there would be legal difficulties due to equality legislation.


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## d2x2 (16 Jan 2010)

IMHO that's a little ridiculous. 

Another way of looking at this would be to impose a penalty on people who attend college and later do not enter the workforce, i.e women becoming stay-at-home mothers (or men, in the same way) because they really steal places from people who need them and they cost taxpayer money. 

That's what some other country does or proposed to do.

It's just as ridiculous, isn't it?


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## Purple (16 Jan 2010)

I agree with all of the above. Stupid article.


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## DerKaiser (16 Jan 2010)

liaconn said:


> The article is entitled 'Should Mature Students be Allowed Go To College?' and suggestss that too many mature students are being allowed into college at the expense of school leavers who really need these places. Just wondering how people feel about this?



It's rubbish.  There are more college places than there was 15 years ago with about 10,000 less school leavers.  Lower quality candidates are getting access to many courses.  The points for engineering, for example, are not sufficient to ensure a minimum standard.

Hopefully the mature students will improve the overall calibre of college graduates, the leaving cert kids have nothing to gripe about because it's never been easier to get a place in college.

On a related point it would do no harm to increase the places available on courses such as medicine where the supply of places has be restricted to ridiculously low levels


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## ali (16 Jan 2010)

liaconn said:


> I see Orna Mulcahy has been annoying people again with her latest Irish Times article (I'm afraid I wasn't able to do the link). The article is entitled 'Should Mature Students be Allowed Go To College?' and suggestss that too many mature students are being allowed into college at the expense of school leavers who really need these places. Just wondering how people feel about this? Personally I think she's talking a load of rubbish and anyone who has the ability to get into University should be equally entitled to a place.


 
My niece is a soon to be 21 year old. She is a single parent also. She is in receipt of one parent family allowance, 50 euro per week maintenance and rent supplement. She also works part time at night. She is doing a brilliant job for her and her baby in making a life. Having done a great leaving with a 4 month old baby in tow, she discovered she could not go to university or college without losing her opf payment and rent allowance thus making her destitute and homeless. She wasn't in a position to get help from her parents who were experiencing unemployment for the first time.

The only option open to her is to wait until she is a mature student at 23 and apply then. Her benefits will remain in those circumstances. In fact I believe she has to be 23 by the 1st Jan of the year she applys and her birthday is late Jan so she will be almost 24 before she will be considered.  
She has done a FAS course in the interim which she excelled at and got a job placement at Merrill Lynch. She was told she would have been employed by them if it were not for an embargo. She cannot do another FAS course for a set period of time (I think it may be 2 years).

The illogical nature of the system means a person who is attempting to get off social welfare is effectively penalised. She is one mature student, I think is deserving of a university place.

A.


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## D8Lady (16 Jan 2010)

I think the definition of mature student is anyone over 23. 

Are we to write off people over that age? Nuts.


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## Yorrick (16 Jan 2010)

I dont think mature students taking college places is a big problem. The big problem is immmature students taking places. Every year thousands of Leaving Certs sign up for Arts, Social ,studies etc without actually finding out what the courses are about. 
The country has become obsessed with the points race and college places. Students feel that they are afailure unless they are destined for a third level course. 
Then after a few months the dropping outs begins


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## aonfocaleile (16 Jan 2010)

Yorrick said:


> The big problem is immmature students taking places. Every year thousands of Leaving Certs sign up for Arts, Social ,studies etc without actually finding out what the courses are about.
> The country has become obsessed with the points race and college places. Students feel that they are afailure unless they are destined for a third level course.
> Then after a few months the dropping outs begins



Very true.


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## chlipps (16 Jan 2010)

Ali... i feel sorry for your niece. Someone that wants to get ahead with a career is not allowed due to red tape and her age. Is it worth contacting dept of social welfare and family affairs or dept of education direct to see if there are any special exemptions. Best of Luck


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## thedaras (17 Jan 2010)

Yorrick said:


> I dont think mature students taking college places is a big problem. The big problem is immmature students taking places. Every year thousands of Leaving Certs sign up for Arts, Social ,studies etc without actually finding out what the courses are about.
> The country has become obsessed with the points race and college places. Students feel that they are afailure unless they are destined for a third level course.
> Then after a few months the dropping outs begins


 
That is the problem..

Many mature students ,sign up for degree courses and after a few months the novelty wears off or they have childminding issues or they discover that the course isnt for them afterall.

I think to take a degree course ,that the mature student should show a commitment by doing a shorter course first to see how interested they really are.

On another issue,but still in regard to mature students,I have done courses where some of the particpants didnt have to pay and due to this they had no commitment and wouldnt turn up a lot of the time.

I know of some people whom are doing courses in UCD ,which they started in Oct 09,they were so up for it and so determined and wouldnt hear of how difficult and time consuming it would be along with travel time and work load including having to have the kids minded,and its only now that the novelty has worn off that they see its not what they wanted after all,and some intend to drop out.

As far as I know the drop out numbers are large in the first year.Which is a pity for those whom did want to do that course but couldnt get a place,and leads me to think how valid is the universitys interview process ...


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## bond-007 (17 Jan 2010)

The third level institutions should introduce interviews for all courses. It is amazing the amount of people that drop out by Christmas. Just because someone gets 600 points it does not mean they are a suitable student for a particular course. I feel students should be vetted beforehand for suitability like the UK system.


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## ali (17 Jan 2010)

chlipps said:


> Ali... i feel sorry for your niece. Someone that wants to get ahead with a career is not allowed due to red tape and her age. Is it worth contacting dept of social welfare and family affairs or dept of education direct to see if there are any special exemptions. Best of Luck


 

Thanks, Chlipps. All avenues exhausted I'm afraid. She's a tenacious girl so she'll get there in the end.

A.


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## Purple (17 Jan 2010)

thedaras said:


> That is the problem..
> 
> Many mature students ,sign up for degree courses and after a few months the novelty wears off or they have childminding issues or they discover that the course isnt for them afterall.
> 
> ...



Good points, but so are Yorrick's. If the average drop out rate is say 20% why don't the universities etc have an extra 20% capacity in first year? (or do they, does anyone know?)


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## micamaca (17 Jan 2010)

thedaras said:


> That is the problem..
> 
> Many mature students ,sign up for degree courses and after a few months the novelty wears off or they have childminding issues or they discover that the course isnt for them afterall.
> 
> ...



I was a mature student. I have to say this was not my experience. I was the only mature student in my degree, and I saw a lot of young students drop out, not turn up to classes, not bother learning anything. They qualified for free fees. The novelty wore off for the under 23's too. 

On the other hand, I shared classes with other mature students on different courses, and hand on heart, I think only one of them dropped out in the three years. Another mature student failed first year, but she came back the following year and is now doing a masters. She has a family to look after too and all that goes with it. 

It is much more difficult to go to college as a mature student. There is no-one doing your washing, grocery shopping, cleaning etc. You have plenty of other things to take up your time as well as your studies. 

I think a lot of students straight out of school haven't the first notion what they really want. An interview might help them, if the questions were relevant. But that would take some organising!

Btw the figures I was quoted five years ago, is that 15% of places are allocated to mature students. That's not a lot. The main problem with universities here is that there are not enough resources to do things properly. My language classes were a joke and it wasn't remotely funny. 

In fact, that could be said for a whole lots of Irish problems these days!


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## onq (17 Jan 2010)

Nobody really understands what college life is about before they enter it.
The amount of self-direction, the hours of study, cramming for exams, being exposed to social and recreational drugs and activities including sex for what may be the first time for some, while at the same time maintaining attendances, mean the 5-year plan of many former studious wallflowers can be derailed despite the best intentions.
And they are the ones who have mastered time management already - the other ones, talented/untalented but disorganized can be even more wayward and are on a course to drop out after first or second year.
Mature students OTOH are more likely to have reached a steady point in their lives, where they are rooted, committed perhaps to a young family of their own and have decided to contribute to this economy as opposed to disappearing the day after they graduate.
Some mature students do find it all too much, they are older, perhaps less acutely interested in "college life" than the first timers and when classes run late are more focussed on picking up the kids from daycare than staying on - all natural consequences.
The 20% drop out rate seems to be indicative of our relatively free-thinking culture, which values individuality and personal freedom highly, rather than any endemic fault in the assessment induction.

ONQ.


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## liaconn (18 Jan 2010)

I agree with the comment about 'immature' people taking up college places. I wonder how many places are wasted on kids who have been pushed, pressured, coached and grind schooled into scraping the points for courses for which they have no natural aptitude or interest, find themselves miserably out of their depth after a couple of months and drop out. 
Also, I don't think too many mature students fail their exams and have to leave because they have spent their entire first year hanging around the student bar and enjoying long lie ins instead of attending lectures.

These are the areas where college places are being unfairly taken up by the wrong people, with significant amounts of taxpayers' money being wasted in the process.


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## Caveat (18 Jan 2010)

onq said:


> ... being exposed to social and recreational drugs and activities including sex for what may be the first time for some, while at the same time maintaining attendances...


 
(sigh) Yes, it was a struggle. We all have our crosses to bear I guess. 

I do remember however the brightest and most studious guy in our class going seriously off the rails at college whilst relative dossers (like myself) got on OK.  I think it was due to a fairly sheltered previous life and the sudden avaialbility of 'distractions'.


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## spursman (18 Jan 2010)

jaybird - who are you doing your distance eduation with?


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## PyritePete (18 Jan 2010)

Caveat said:


> (sigh) Yes, it was a struggle. We all have our crosses to bear I guess.
> 
> 
> I do remember however the brightest and most studious guy in our class going seriously off the rails at college whilst relative dossers (like myself) got on OK. I think it was due to a fairly sheltered previous life and the sudden avaialbility of 'distractions'.


 
+1, there was this guy in our college that didn't drink alcohol. At his 21st party he got buckled on several beers & didn't look back


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## chlipps (18 Jan 2010)

I assume it will only be time whereby grants will be extinct and students will be paying back after they have completed their education

From my college days... I recall that it was only the students out of school that were prone to drop out. Any mature student that came back knew how to work hard and made the most of it.


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## bond-007 (18 Jan 2010)

+1.

I was a mature student some 12 years ago. There was 40 in my class at the start of first year. The next year we were down to 10. I was the only mature student of the lot. A 75% drop out rate. Madness.


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## thedaras (18 Jan 2010)

bond-007 said:


> +1.
> 
> I was a mature student some 12 years ago. There was 40 in my class at the start of first year. The next year we were down to 10. I was the only mature student of the lot. A 75% drop out rate. Madness.


 
Waitaminute!!!
A class of 40 reduces to 10!!

What happens in that situation?

 Do they reduce the teaching staff?

Do they offer places to others?

Say for example they hire two french lecturers,for the 40 students.
then 30 drop out so the college needs just one,or a half of one,what do they do?
Are we ( tax payers ) paying for this??
Do the colleges take this massive drop out rate into account when hiring staff?
(Questions not directed at  the quoted poster,just general questions )


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## Purple (18 Jan 2010)

thedaras said:


> Waitaminute!!!
> A class of 40 reduces to 10!!
> 
> What happens in that situation?
> ...


 Secret agent training is very hard.


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## thedaras (19 Jan 2010)

Elementary, my dear Watson


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## bond-007 (19 Jan 2010)

thedaras said:


> Waitaminute!!!
> A class of 40 reduces to 10!!
> 
> What happens in that situation?
> ...


Well they do. In the sciences a 75% drop out rate is common enough particularly in the ITs. They would have enough lecturers hired to teach the first years. In the second year there would be different teachers teaching the now smaller class. You would normally loose one student a week over the course of the year and of course a few would fail the exams. I did comment on the drop out rate to one of the senior teachers, he said the most that ever came back in second year was 15. 

There were some awfully immature students back in the day. They thought that being a mature student was a joke.


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## liaconn (19 Jan 2010)

bond-007 said:


> There were some awfully immature students back in the day.


 
There still are, if the amount of loud, shouty, self obssessed. 'look at me' teenagers you see on buses and hanging around shopping centres are anything to go by. In fact, it might be no bad thing if they had to go straight out into the real world for a couple of years before going to University  in order to realise the competition they will be up against in the labour market and the fact that most of them are not the fascinating ,uber talented, sought after beings they seem to imagine they are.


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## Caveat (19 Jan 2010)

Just sounds like the average 17/18 year old to me.  No reason to think that they would be any more mature than those who don't go to 3rd level.


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## liaconn (19 Jan 2010)

That's my point. Presumably many of the school leavers going to college (and more deserving of places than people aged 23+) come from that pool.


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## truthseeker (20 Jan 2010)

liaconn said:


> In fact, it might be no bad thing if they had to go straight out into the real world for a couple of years before going to University in order to realise the competition they will be up against in the labour market and the fact that most of them are not the fascinating ,uber talented, sought after beings they seem to imagine they are.


 
Thats a brilliant idea - is that what the idea of a 'gap' year is about (or is that more geared for a bit of craic between school and university?)


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## Caveat (20 Jan 2010)

truthseeker said:


> Thats a brilliant idea - is that what the idea of a 'gap' year is about


 
I think traditionally it was for trvelling and broadening the mind - which may or may not include paid employment.  

In my day 'kibbutzing' combined with the temporary adoption of eastern religions/philosphies, a wholefood diet with a side order of mind altering substances was the big thing.


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## truthseeker (20 Jan 2010)

Caveat said:


> In my day 'kibbutzing' combined with the temporary adoption of eastern religions/philosphies, a wholefood diet with a side order of mind altering substances was the big thing.


 

hmmmm....in my day we couldnt afford to take time out to go off enjoying ourselves, in fact it was frowned upon that I wanted an education at all - why couldnt I just get out and get a job immediately after school!!

So I had to combine my studies with temporary adoptions of eastern religions/philosophies, a some food diet  and naturally a smattering of mind altering substances. It was hard work I tells ya!


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## huskerdu (20 Jan 2010)

The Orna Mulcahy article was elitist, snobby and all about me, me, me, me me. 

It is hard trying to get into college, and it is stressful for parents of leaving cert students, but Orna Mulcahy specifically talked about " parents in the suburbs".
She doesn't have a lot of sympathy with people who can't got to college, because they don't live in a city or town with a college and their parents cant afford the rent and upkeep, or people from backgrounds where there is no-one to encourage them, help them with CAO forms, make sure they have somewhere quiet to study, people
with disabilities ( The list goes on, and on, and on)

There are lots of people for whom getting into college and staying there is a real struggle, both mature students and school leavers. 

Having a go at mature students taking my childs place is just selfish.


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## onq (20 Jan 2010)

One of the brightest guys I ever met got mixed up with drugs at 16 - he never made it to college - he died of a drug overdose at 30.
Another guy mind financed himself through 2 years of playing pool in the students union by sussing the payout intervals of slot machines.

ONQ.


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## liaconn (20 Jan 2010)

huskerdu said:


> The Orna Mulcahy article was elitist, snobby and all about me, me, me, me me.
> 
> It is hard trying to get into college, and it is stressful for parents of leaving cert students, but Orna Mulcahy specifically talked about " parents in the suburbs".
> She doesn't have a lot of sympathy with people who can't got to college, because they don't live in a city or town with a college and their parents cant afford the rent and upkeep, or people from backgrounds where there is no-one to encourage them, help them with CAO forms, make sure they have somewhere quiet to study, people
> ...


 
I think that was what was so galling about the article. The sense of entitlement and the assumption that her child almost 'owned' a place at University that was being 'given' to someone else.


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