Only third of students to get grant by Christmas

Just 13,500 of the 35,000 first-year students due a college grant will have been paid by Christmas, despite government promises of a faster, more efficient system.

A month ago, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said the agency handling grant applications had a target of paying or approving 33,000 students for grants of college fee payments by the end of the year.

However, up to yesterday Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) had only paid 11,404 students and expects to pay grants to 2,000 more by the end of the week.

These are among 24,000 who have been awarded or provisionally awarded support, 9,000 fewer than the end-of-year target. They include 4,750 who have been approved to have their student fees paid by Susi but whose family income is too high to qualify them for a maintenance grant.

Around 2,300 applications are going through the final assessment and should be processed by the end of December.

City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, wh-ich operates Susi, said it had asked 6,723 applicants for income and other documents missing from earlier submissions. Susi officials hope to pay the first instalments of grants at the end of next week and will work every day bar Christmas Day and St Stephen’s Day to clear backlogs.

Almost 4,000 students, most deemed eligible for a grant in the past week, must submit bank details or have their registration confirmed by colleges before they can be paid. However, Susi officials said a further 1,941 have to confirm they have accepted a course before it can proceed to that stage.

About 35,000 students are expected to be eligible for a grant or have fees paid, based on previous years, but some late applicants will have to wait until earlier applications are cleared.

Despite years of criticism of the handling of grant applications by local councils and VECs, Union of Students in Ireland president John Logue said the previous system had many advantages over Susi. Students who received a grant last year had their renewals dealt with by the 66 councils and VECs this year, but Susi will handle all first-time applications and renewals within three years.

Jacinta Stewart, CDVEC CEO, rejected Mr Logue’s claims people were having difficulty getting through to Susi helplines. However, a parent who has applied for grants for her son and daughter, who both started college this year, told the Irish Examiner it took three weeks to get through on the phone.

“My daughter’s college told her on Nov 23 it was notified by Susi that her student fees were being paid. But I wanted to find out if she was also qualified for a maintenance grant, because they did not tell me anything,” she said.

“I eventually got through on the phone last Friday to be told a letter had just been generated to tell us the outcome. The whole system is crazy, I had to apply separately for both of them. They wrote out to me three times for documents I’d already supplied and my son was approved for a grant in early November but still hasn’t been paid.”