Funding education - Hard choices on fees can’t be avoided

ALMOST 58,000 young people will get their Leaving Certificate results this morning.

Many of them, and some parents too, will imagine it the most important day of their lives, but the fullness of time will offer another, less absolute perspective. The exam is of course very important but life will, almost certainly, bring far more important and fulfilling moments.

More than 40,000 students hope to continue in education, so a great number of parents will be torn between wishing the very best for their children and wondering how they will finance their children’s entirely reasonable and laudable ambitions. At this moment of great economic uncertainty, most families are finding it hard to make ends meet so the prospect of ever-increasing education bills is unwelcome.

The statement this week from Education Minister Ruairí Quinn, ruling out third-level loans, makes the re-imposition of fees seem unavoidable. This may not be as we might wish but today’s system is unsustainable and to pretend otherwise is dishonest.

Third-level education, even without the fees, is very expensive. Students — or, more realistically, their parents — pay a services charge of €2,000 a year but that is only a fraction of what it costs to support higher education. The Exchequer pays more than €13,000 a year for each student. This shows the universities’ €2,000 fee in a very different context. Despite this, universities and institutes of technology are dramatically under-funded and a number of college presidents have repeatedly warned the present situation is untenable.

That said, many people in industry or business have repeatedly warned that we are not producing enough graduates with the skills to realise our knowledge-economy ambitions. Other voices wonder if the universities are as efficient as they might be, and there remains a nagging doubt that they may not be. There is also the situation where Irish academics enjoy pay rates far higher than the European average.

All of these issues combine to make college fees a very real prospect. Irish people are realists and we might find this imposition more tolerable if we thought the sacrifice worthwhile and utterly unavoidable.

For instance, Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte is about to sign off on a round of gas and oil exploration licences but it is not at all certain that we are getting the best possible deal. After all, these are the kind of revenues grown-up countries use to fund things such as education, health and pensions, yet there seems to be a doubt that we may not be making the best of this opportunity.

Like German taxpayers, many parents will wonder too why they are being asked to support salary levels so far beyond anything they can expect themselves.

It does seem likely that we can expect the reintroduction of college fees but before this happens, every other revenue opportunity must be looked at — even if it is outside the terms of the Croke Park deal — and there must be an absolute guarantee that no one who has shown real potential will be denied the opportunity of a higher education because they can not afford it.