Students could face further hike to €1,500 service charge

THIRD-LEVEL students could face a further increase on the €1,500 service charge next year despite the promise of no tuition fees, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan indicated yesterday.

She also hinted at a belief in the need for some form of student fees after the current Government’s lifetime.

But she said no decision could be made on this until she has considered the report of the higher education strategy group chaired by economist Dr Colin Hunt. The report is due to set out a 20-year plan and is expected by the Education Minister later in the summer.

She told the Oireachtas Education Committee that, although there will be no rise in the service charge next autumn, she could not rule an increase in or out for 2011. The maximum charge colleges can impose rose last year from €900 to €1,500, as they struggle to deal with rising student numbers which are not being matched by funding increases from Government.

Committee chairman and Green Party education spokesperson, Paul Gogarty, whose party secured a commitment from Fianna Fáil in last October’s renegotiation of the Programme for Government that no student fees would be introduced in the coalition’s lifetime, said the same principle should mean no increase in student service charges.

Asked by Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes about her beliefs on the need for student tuition charges through a loan scheme or other system, Ms Coughlan said: “We have to make the right decision regardless of politics, for the future of third level education. But unfortunately, we all have disparate views on how that’s going to happen.”

Fine Gael proposes a graduation tax that students would begin paying through the PRSI system after they begin earning a certain income, not unlike the graduate loan model favoured by Ms Coughlan’s predecessor Batt O’Keeffe until the issue was shelved in the revised coalition deal.

The Tánaiste said increasing student numbers and expanding our knowledge economy could not be achieved exclusively through taxpayer funding, so there is a need for more commercialisation of research and fee-paying international students and philanthropic donations.

Mr O’Keeffe asked the Higher Education Authority last year to probe the actual costs of student services supposed to be covered by the charges, following accusations that universities and institutes of technology are subsidise teaching and other core activities with the money.

During the hearing, the minister could not give assurances to TDs and senators who asked her to prescribe which services should be covered by the charge. But, she said, further guidance may have to be given to colleges if it emerges that any of them could not justify spending of some income from the charge.

FG’s Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames earlier suggested that students at one university were being charged for campus medical services that ought to be free. Independent senator David Norris questioned the use of the revenue at another college for animal testing facilities, and libraries which should be considered a core function of any third level institution, he said.