CAO day: 15,000 already approved for college grants

Around 15,000 Leaving Certificate students were already approved for college grants this year before the main business of courses being offered began today.

They are among 17,380 students, not including those at college last year, whose grant applications were provisionally cleared late last week. The award of these grants is subject to registering and beginning their courses.

At this time last year, just over 4,400 people were similarly given provisional approval to receive financial assistance from Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI), but most were mature students or people accepted onto further education courses.