The issue is who makes the decisions regarding eligability. Grants are allocated by individual Local Authoritys. The system is rife with abuse
In fairness any abuse of the system is done at the form filling stage by clever accounting or non declaration of income. Decisions are made on the basis of the information given which is pretty extensive, hard to see how any abuse could occur within the system.
Also the grant can be from covering registration fee only (1500) right up to a full non adjacent with additional top up (about 6k a year) and it is based on a mix of family income and number of kids in third level; without seeing a full breakdown it is hard to get a proper picture of what the 50% truly represents.
Maybe, maybe not, it depends on the LA and the resourcing available.Is the grant awarding checking system capable of detecting this type of misleading claim.
The reform of financing must also include a reform of the procedures for means testing for students’ maintenance grants. This should be more streamlined and timely, and should be delivered through a single agency.
The introduction of a student contribution should not inhibit participation in higher education from people in low and lower middle-income households. One of the principal barriers for entry to higher education affecting students from lower income groups is their relatively lower levels of school completion and lower levels of attainment in the Leaving Certificate. This highlights the importance of actions to raise levels of attainment at earlier stages of the education cycle and of pursuing accelerated routes to entry for such students. For those students from lower income groups who do achieve the necessary prior levels of attainment, financial constraints (relating to maintenance in addition to existing student charges) can and do affect participation. These financial barriers, which can be significant, are amenable to direct intervention through the student support framework for higher education.
It is therefore proposed that the individual contributions system should be complemented by a reformed grant support system for disadvantaged students.
The State invests considerable public funding in means-tested student grants for approximately 40 per cent of all full-time students. However, the absence of any consideration of assets and wealth in the means test model has limited the scope of the State to target these scarce resources towards those students most in need of support. This has impacted negatively on potential growth of participation in higher education from the large numbers of households at lower middle-income levels for which affordability considerations play a significant role in the choice of entering higher education.
The very considerable inefficiencies in the current arrangements for administering student grants reflect the incremental and sector-based growth of higher education in Ireland, and the current means assessment model does not command public confidence. For these reasons, the means assessment model must be reformed, and the processes relating to higher education grants must become more streamlined and timely, and must be delivered by a single agency. Such reform is essential to supporting equity of access to higher education and to wider social inclusion goals.
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