Over 6,000 students await grant decision

More than 6,000 students are still waiting for decisions on their grant applications with just three months left in the college year, as they struggle with money issues amid assessments and end-of-year exams.

As an independent review gets under way into the problems in the first year of Student Universal Support Ireland, the agency revealed that 6,145 applications have yet to be finalised.

SUSI was heralded as making the grant process quicker and easier when it was launched by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn last summer. However, it now plans to have outside agency staff on standby in case backlogs like those experienced by thousands of students since last autumn arise later this year.