Boost for Susi as 58,000 grants paid out

Almost 60,000 students have been paid their grants or had their €3,000 college fees paid as Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) continues to improve its processes.

The 57,800 students who had been paid up to last week are among 63,000 who have been cleared to receive some level of support from the awarding body. The remaining 5,200 students require confirmation of their college registration or their bank accounts for first payments to issue, a spokesperson said.

“In addition to the published monthly payment dates, payments are being made on a weekly basis until Christmas to ensure that as many students as possible are paid as soon as such confirmation is received,” he said.

This has been the first year that college grants have been paid in September, largely due to an earlier opening date and further changes to the process. The 63,000 awards made so far this year are 19% more than at the same time in 2014, and represent an increase of 4,000 in a fortnight.

More than 10,000 were waiting until the last two weeks of October to receive their first payments, which had only been made to 47,500 students by mid-October.

Susi has been taking over the processing and payment of student grants on a phased basis since 2012. In its first year, a range of problems attributed to poor planning, staffing shortages and communications errors, meant tens of thousands of students did not receive their grants until after the first term in January 2013.

While 63,000 applications have been successful so far in 2015, another 14,000 were either refused or have been cancelled. The 77,000 cases fully processed by last week represent nearly three-quarters of almost 107,00 applications received this year, but today is the final cut-off to submit claims to get Susi support.

More than 15,000 people applied after the deadline in early August, meaning those who sought a grant before them have priority in the process. These late applications include hundreds only received by Susi in the past fortnight.

An estimated 82,000 people will qualify either to receive a grant and have their college fees paid, or just to have their fees paid, depending on the household income.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan told TDs and senators five weeks ago that she expects the €332m provided for student grants in 2015 would not be enough.

She is likely to include additional funding for the scheme in a request to the Dáil for a supplementary budget in the coming weeks.

The figures emerge as the Central Applications Office (CAO) opens at noon today for prospective college students to seek entry to college next year.

“Applicants do not need to have decided on their course choices at this stage, the first step in the application process is to obtain your CAO application number. You can then log in to your account up to January 31 to introduce and amend your choices free of charge,” said CAO general manager, Joe O’Grady.

A consultation on a new National Skills Strategy launched this week by Ms O’Sullivan and Skills Minister Damien English highlighted mixed results on previous targets set in 2007.

While benchmarks sought to reach by 2020 for reduced early school leaving and improved youth qualifications have already been reached, far slower progress is reported on improving qualifications achieved by lower-skilled members of the labour force.