College fees ‘inevitable solution to third-level funding crisis’

College fees seem an inevitable solution to the country’s third-level funding crisis, an international education expert has said.

“What seems inevitable is some kind of fee preferably accompanied by a loan or a graduate tax,” said Bahram Bekhradnia, president of the UK-based Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

Mr Bekhradnia was speaking at the final consultation of Ireland’s Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education.

The group was established last year by Jan O’Sullivan, the education minister, to examine the current funding arrangements for higher education.

The group, which is chaired by Peter Cassells, former general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions, commissioned a report by Mr Bekhradnia to look at international funding models. The group has created a number of discussion papers before it issues its final report to the Government at the end of 2015.

“It leaves politicians with no hiding place. It’s too easy at the moment and has been in the past for politicians to say ‘we’ll be more efficient,’ or ‘we’ll do more with less,’ which are not the same thing, or ‘go out and raise more money from industry.’ “I think what this review will do is expose that those will not resolve the problem that we have. What it will do is to insist that they [politicians] cannot avoid the relationship between funding and quality,” Mr Bekhradnia stated.

Jan O’Sullivan, the education minister

HEPI, which is an independent body, is considered to be the world’s leading think-tank on higher education.

“If you really cannot face some of these options, private or public money, then either you reduce student numbers or face a reduction in quality,” warned Mr Bekhradnia yesterday.

Spending on higher education here is below the developed world’s average and it is far lower than what is spent in Finland, the US, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark.

Ireland’s annual higher education budget currently stands at around €2bn, and it is estimated that this will need to be at €3bn in 10 years’ time.

It is also estimated, based on Ireland’s growing demographic, that there will be a 29% increase in the number of third-level entrants by 2028.

There are no plans to change the student contribution regime in the coming 12 months and there is an agreement in place to keep the fees at €3,000 a year.

The expert group will deliver their report to Ms O’Sullivan by the end of the year.