UCC highlights need for funding and says student fees must increase
The president of University College Cork said that students will have to pay more to help fund third-level education and ensure universities can meet the needs of an ever-changing workforce.
Michael Murphy said student fees would have to increase along with funding from the public and private sector, and advocated the introduction of a student loan scheme to help students cope with the additional financial burden.
Undergraduate students currently pay a contribution fee of €3,000.
Cuts to UCC’s funding are having a detrimental impact on the college with the recent loss of accreditation for one of its chemical engineering courses, a prime example of the consequences of such funding pressures.
He said it was just the tip of the iceberg unless funding concerns are adequately addressed.
The UCC chief said the level of public funding in the Irish system “is not far below the OECD norm” but a severe lack of private investment exists.
The Government’s higher education working group had been due, by year end, to make recommendations as to how best to fund the third- level system.
“I would anticipate that what [the group] will be setting out is that we do need to adjust, upwards, the public funding,” said Dr Murphy.
“Private [funding], which includes student contributions, will have to increase with a loan system to support disadvantaged students and there will have to be a mechanism for ensuring that the business and private sector also invest in the system.”
Australian and New Zealand models, he said, would be preferable to that of the UK, where the burden had transferred excessively to the student.
Since European body Ecofin determined in 2009 that the Irish third-level education system had no residual capacity — essentially producing the highest number of students at the lowest cost — third-level institutes have experienced a 22% decrease in funding per student, from €11,000 to €9,000.
In the past seven years, there has been a fall in state grants of 38%. At the same time, numbers employed by third-level institutes fell by 13%. With the college’s capital expenditure this year at 3% of what it was in 2009, the pinch is now being felt.
“Our ability to keep up to date in IT infrastructure, to refurbish buildings and make improvements has been virtually removed ... our capacity to respond to the evolving talents’ needs is hugely constrained,” said Dr Murphy.
“The staff-to-student ratio has gone from one staff member to 24 students whereas the British equivalent would be 1:14 or 1:15 and you can understand, in those circumstances, [UCC] can’t do all the things we want to do and need to do.”
