Colleges rely on funding from business to assist poor students

COLLEGES are relying heavily on funding from business to help students from poor backgrounds because of uncertainty about State supports, a conference heard yesterday.

A major focus of Government strategies and funding for third level education in recent years has been the number of students from under-represented socio-economic groups in each institution.

However, the head of Trinity College Dublin’s access programmes said that such schemes have operated on uncertain year-to-year funding for the past decade.