Almost 7,000 students still awaiting decision on college grant

Almost 7,000 college students are still awaiting a decision on their grant applications, with about 4,000 of them expected to qualify for a payment and hundreds more waiting to have their college fees paid.

Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) said it has made payments of grants or fees to 31,639 of the estimated 35,000-plus likely to be eligible for assistance this year up to last Wednesday evening.

Another 2,321 were due to have their grants paid once banking details are supplied, although 1,300 of those had only been approved for a grant in the previous week.

However, there were another 6,939 applications waiting to be finalised, according to data supplied to the Irish Examiner.

A spokesperson for Susi said: “These applications require the applicant to provide either final information or documents for the application to proceed to final decision, or to confirm that they are not proceeding with their application.”

One of the biggest issues in the first year of Susi’s operation — handling all first-time applicants this year and eventually taking over all applications — has been around the provision of documents. Problems with submitted documents not being registered by Susi and students being asked to send them in again have swamped the agency, which outsourced this initial stage of the process to a private firm.

However, there have also been issues around the decision-making process, with students awarded the wrong type or amount of grant and forced to appeal, instead of having those mistakes rectified quickly.

An independent review will begin soon into the problems and will seek to answer a range of questions about the agency and the planning that went into its establishment.

Last summer, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said Susi would make the grants process quicker, and easier for students and their families, but he was forced to apologise in November as difficulties emerged.

Student unions have been helping applicants finalise submissions, with phone calls also being made to students that Susi says have yet to send in paperwork. It is also trying to identify if some students have decided not to proceed with their applications.

Susi is taking over the entire grants system over the next three years from 66 councils and VECs.

The councils and VECs are still looking after grants for recipients who had been receiving a payment before the current college year