Free third-level fees perpetuated inequality

The Higher Education Authority declares that third-level institutions need to reintroduce fees if they are to survive.

This is a remarkable, and long overdue, volte-face from the HEA, which itself endorsed free third-level education during the late 1990s. The HEA believed that this experiment would promote equality in education, instead of which even more advantage was conferred on the middle classes.

By the turn of the Millennium, it was clear to many students and staff, if not to university management, that free education and excessive senior salaries were draining the system dry.