Reg Fee increase

· As a student I attended the march in Dublin because of its principles; no to severe education cuts. But I do not agree that the Union of Students in Ireland is putting forward a credible protest toward Education Cuts. If they want to be effective they have to put forward some credible solutions to the funding shortfall.

· The government are taking the easy option out by increasing the Registration Fee. They are not looking at other proposals and are totally missing the earning potential of college students. To put it simply a large number of students who go on to finish their course and get employment will be on a wage that would be considered relatively comfortable to live on.

· Fine Gael have a proposal that they would introduce a graduate tax by where a student would be taxed when they leave college and in turn pay for 30% of the cost of their third level education over time. But I believe that this proposal needs tweaking for the current grave economic situation we are in. In short the system needs a funding immediatley, it needs cash now!

· I would propose that the registration free by raised and capped at 2’000 which would be sustainable. At the time that a student pays the registration fee the government takes out a bank loan in the name of the student for a value of 2’000. In turn that would mean that the student will eventually pay for 4’000 per year of the cost of his/her education and the government gets 4’000 per student per year straight away.

· The government should focus on reforming the system where by the Free Fee’s scheme is not helping the majority of young people it was introduced to help. A majority of young people in Socio-Economicly disadvantaged areas are still not progressing to third level education, only 5% between Finglas-Ballymun progress to Third Level. But compared to Foxrock where close to 100% attend a College/Universtiy. An unfair aspect to this is that the budget will increase taxes for the working class which in turn pays for the higher education of the better off.

· Quality of our education has to be a top priority. The standard of our degrees and other awards could fall due to funding shortfall which will do signigicant damage to our reputation abroad.

Students face a battle for places (Letter to the Independent)

As a student in the University of Limerick, I feel sympathy for the Leaving Cert students who visited the campus during the past open days here. Following next Decembers budget where state funding to third level institutions is expected to be cut by 3% they will face a significant battle to secure a college place. College administrators have had to cut costs by on average 6% over the past 2 years. But now to reduce costs further they will have no choice but to cap the number of places available on courses or even reduce the amount of places on offer. If they do not do this the quality of Third Level education would decrease in this country, significantly damaging the accreditation of Irish Qualifications abroad. It is vital also that the standard of Third Level education here do not drop to ensure investment in our Universities like Limerick for research and to encourage foreign students to study here in Ireland. How can our government claim to be pursuing a ‘Smart Economy’ when they are squeezing the countries institutions to the breaking point? The standard even needs to be raised in some cases, as the fiasco where the Psychological Society of Ireland revoked accreditation from the American College Dublin, leaving most of the 62 students involved having to transfer to another Institution. The current government is failing to direct investment into the country and thus isn’t incentivising companies to hire graduates. The draconian budget brought in at the time of the start of the recession severely limited growth in this country. Graduates in this University and others with honours degrees and masters are flocking abroad to Australia and Canada because of the lack of opportunities here. Even some who have been fortunate to be offered a job have turned it down in favour of heading on the plane abroad due to the reduced pay, long hours and poor benefits.