Student services cost less than €2k

COLLEGE charges for student services which the Government may increase to around €2,500 are only costing universities between €1,589 and €1,943 a year per head.

This is the range of costs the universities told the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) they incurred for each of their students in the 2008/09 academic year.

The purposes of the charge, currently €1,500 per student, has never been clearly defined but the figures from the Irish University Association (IUA) cover items such as student services, exam and registration costs, and non-tuition academic services.

The biggest spend two years ago was €1,943 per student by Trinity College Dublin but this was down from €2,048 in 2007/08.

The other college spends per student in 2008/09 were: University College Dublin, €1,612 (down from €1,747); University College Cork, €1,661 (down from €1,712); NUI Galway, €1,761 (down from €1,763); NUI Maynooth, €1,591 (down from €1,727); University of Limerick, €1,773 (down from €1,950); DCU, €1,589 (up from €1,578).

The figures appear to negate claims by student representatives that the service fee paid by undergraduates is not fully spent on the areas for which they are intended. But there is a dispute between the Union of Students in Ireland and college bosses about which services should be covered by Government funding and which are to be paid from the service charge, which was €900 in the 2008/09 college year.

“This data shows that we were spending well in excess of the revenue raised by the charge,” IUA chief executive Ned Costello said.

Meanwhile, the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) has hit out at reports that large salaries were widespread in the third-level teaching sector and said a system of undisclosed pay arrangements for small numbers of senior university staff must be ended.

The union called on the HEA to disclose details of exceptionally high salaries paid to certain senior personnel in six universities, following publication of a list of the top earners in the education sector.

“It is almost exclusively made up of administrators, bureaucrats and managers. Imagine the frustration that will be felt by assistant lecturers [starting salary €33,623] or college lecturers [€48,306] at the allegation that they are ‘high flyers’,” said IFUT general secretary Mike Jennings.