Cuts ‘force universities to find €1,000 per student’

UNIVERSITY bosses have to find an extra €1,000 for every student each year because of effective cuts in government funding, it was claimed yesterday.

The Irish Universities Association, which represents the heads of the seven universities, estimates the public funding received for each student in 2006 was almost €5,400.

But the corresponding figure in 2001 was €4,604, which the association equates to €6,465 in 2006 prices. A previous report shows that the per-student funding from the Government fell by almost a fifth between 1995 and 2000.