Quinn under pressure over third-level funding

EDUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn is under pressure to decide soon on student fees or some other source of funding to meet a looming €500 million gap in third-level budgets after the country’s drop in the latest world university rankings.

The Government is likely to consider in the next few weeks whether to impose further fees on students, in addition to the €2,000 charge now levied on most of those not eligible for grants.

Mr Quinn will get a preliminary report on likely funding requirements from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) next week and bring a recommendation to Cabinet soon after. But he accepts estimates that an extra €500m a year will be needed to fund last January’s higher education strategy in the so-called Hunt report.

Any changes could come into effect as soon as next autumn but Mr Quinn told the Irish Examiner he believes a student loan system, one of the main options available, would take too long to bring in the necessary additional funding.

His other options are to increase student fees or to get more money from the Department of Finance on top of the €1.9bn currently spent on higher education.

“I’m waiting for the HEA to come back with their assessment and I’m going to look at their recommendations,” he said.

Asked if this would feed into next year’s budget in December, he said any proposal could only come into effect from the next academic year starting in autumn 2012.

“I really want to see what the HEA outline and I’ll start making decisions then and bringing recommendations to Cabinet,” he said.

The HEA and third-level bosses have warned that anything short of an urgent significant funding boost will see the quality of education worsen. The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings yesterday showed Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin slipping out of the top 100 to 117th and 159th, with all other colleges except NUI Maynooth losing ground.

But the Union of Students in Ireland said it is up to Government to come up with the necessary finance as any form of tuition fees will only prevent thousands of people from accessing higher education and force thousands of students to drop out of college.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) said it is remarkable how many Irish colleges are in the top 3% worldwide despite “calamitous” cuts in funding and staffing.

“Small changes in these rankings are given exaggerated importance way beyond their merit. Most academics are completely sceptical about the validity of the rankings process,” said IFUT general secretary Mike Jennings.