Bryan, as a student I fully agree with you that the introduction of fees for university is stupid. I would disagree with you on your point that Ireland is not divided on class. You can see it clearly at third level education. i went to my local state run secondary school. I’m proud of the school i went to. When i started at university i encountered people from wealthy backgrounds( the private schools, multiple houses, cars and holidays) and i never felt like i was from a social ‘class’ before but some of them can make a person feel very much like being from another planet.
All this talk of knowledge economy is great and all but the few of us at college from a less well of background feel that after graduation we will not have the same chance as those from the well off background as we are reminded constantly of the ‘old boys’ and ‘old girls’ network by them. Yes we have a better chance than our peers, who after leaving school were advised to become bricklayers, electricians etc.
Most of the well off students openly brag about their multiple holidays, nights out and how they have no knowledge of the recession. While those of us on grant checks know how financially demanding it is.
Fees will only make universities the domain of the rich even more so and the already uneven playing field will be more so. There are few enough of us at third level from a normal background and with fees we will be nearing extinction.

Dave is exactly right.

The principle of free third-level education is laudable, the practice of it isn’t.

We already have a two tier education system where the children of the better off can effectively cheat their way to the head of the points race because they can afford private tuition and grind schools.

A system of partially deferred fees where the students’ parents pay a portion (depending on the parents’ income) and the student repays the remainder as a small percentage of post-graduation salary once obtaining a job, is equitable and fair.

The way I look at it, the quality of the education on offer is by far the most important issue for the reason that Irish education has to compete with the best in the world which has knock on effects for industry and the economy. If education is too socialised , quality will drop, it will be expensive and there will be shortages in some disciplines and an over supply of soft or low quality degrees elsewhere.
I found some of the poster comments insulting. I grew up in the 80’s where my parents had a very average salary by the standard of the day. I jumped though the hoops and went to the grind courses , however a couple of things on that, firstly people had to compensate for low quality state schools and a union run teaching professions that value their job security over the interests of the students also if one family respects education over another where the Sky Sports subscription takes priority isn’t there some point where families have to take responsibility over the life choices they make for their kids?

Personally I find that our current system strikes a good balance between the wasteful free entry system of France, in which huge numbers of students fail their first year and/or drop out, those of Britain and the US in which money buys opportunities.

I appreciate that it costs a lot of money to do this, but can’t we feel content to know that third-level students are either intelligent enough or sufficiently hard-working to earn their place?

I work part-time in a pub, under the current tax system I pay very very little tax. Surely if I become a vet or an accountant I’d be paying more in taxes, and so paying for what I get in university?

Sorry Bryan..that comment was directed at JC

Dave,

Here is a summary of the most recent statistics from the HEA/ESRI:

http://www.esri.ie/news_events/press_releases_archive/2006/who_went_to_college_in_20/index.xml

Not to long ago a Principal from my constituency in a school in a designated disadvantaged area told the irish times that students from the school going on to 3rd level had increased by 500 per cent since 1997. Fees were abolished in the academic year 1996/1997.

What is your opinion on the above statistics?

Bryan – I didn’t say the abolition of fees haven’t benefited lower-income families- it is a big discount, after all. My point is that while poorer people have greater access to third-level education, they’re still massively disadvantaged at second-level, while better-off families can use the lack of fees to put their kids in better schools, grinds etc.

I do agree that reinstating fees will hurt lower earners more than their abolition helped them, but that’s why it’s imperative that the system be restructured to benefit only the disadvantaged.

Joanna – I wrote my original post in a bit of a rush, but I believe it is still correct- I’ll have to have a look for the source on the information.

As far as postal codes go, I don’t think it’s at all possible to use them as a basis for comparison. The social and economic profile of Dubliners has undergone such rapid change in that time that it’s impossible to make such crude comparisons.

So what if middle class kids have also benefited from a policy that, as Joanna has shown, improved access to third level institutions for poorer students? We can’t talk about waste in universities as though there is a shortage of primary and secondary pupils who don’t take even that seriously. At the end of the day, isn’t the idea behind free university education investing in as many people as possible for the sake of the country’s future? If that hasn’t done enough to help those from less well off backgrounds, I would have thought that the answer would be to look for other ways to correct that, rather than scrapping the universal access.

I don’t know… from where I stand, Ireland needs to invest as much as possible in Ireland’s future. Maybe this is just the populist sentiment in me, but I don’t get how the need to intervene in the financial/banking sector can be seen as a necessity, while universal third sector education is debatable. Impose a graduate tax at a certain income, maybe even create a system of national service for graduates, but don’t make it harder for people to learn and fulfil their potential.

Bryan, Introducing fees along with student loans as in the Australian model, which seems to be the option the government prefers, is NOT scrapping universal access and it does NOT make it in any way shape or form “harder to learn and fulfil their potential”.I agree completely with the other posters here who rightly point out that nobody is owed a university degree.The country is on its knees financially and cannot afford to be so generous.It is misguided of you to compare intervening in the banking sector and education.It is, in fact, this kind of thinking which got the country into this mess in the first place.

Words words words. Zoom out & Think BIG. The blanket REintroduction of third level fees is WRONG fullstop.

It is a backward step, pure & simple. I sincerely hope that students everywhere will reclaim their backbone, find their voices on this issue and come out strongly to fight against it.

maire. t

The abolition of third level tuition fees did not benefit the well off. At the time fees were abolished The rich were already writing of the cost of fees under the tax covenanting scheme which Labour abolished at the same time it abolished third level fees, with savings to the public finances of £40 million a year. Further details on the impact of Labour’s ending of the tax covenanting scheme are here:
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/oct/19/tax-reform-savings-could-pay-college-bill

However, bringing back fees will hurt lower middle income groups that are not by any standard well off. The Socio-economic background of third level entrants has been studied by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) since 1980. According to these studies between 1980 and 1992, the children of all but three social groups out of 11 improved their participation rate in college. The three social groups were the Lower Professional, Salaried Employees, Intermediate Non-Manual workers – all low-to-middle-income PAYE workers. The participation rate of children from the three social groups concerned not only did not improve but worsened from the years 1986 to 1992. By 1998 a year after the abolition of third level tuition fees the HEA report found that the decline in participation by each of these groups had been reversed.

These groups that were in decline have since the abolition of fees continued to increase their rate of participation at college as is borne out in the ESRI/HEA publication from 2006 details of which I linked to above in my comment directed at Dave, and here is an extract from the ESRI/HEA Press Statement about that publication:

“Participation in higher education in Ireland has increased by an impressive 11% since 1998 and is now 55%. All socio-economic groups have benefited. This is particularly so for the Skilled Manual Group which has almost doubled their participation in higher education to a range of 50-60% compared to 32% in 1998. The Semi and Unskilled Socio-Economic Group has also made a considerable advance – from 23% to between 33-40% over the same period. At 71%, Sligo is the county with the highest rate of admission to higher education and there has been a 13% increase in the rate of admission for Dublin. Seven out of every 10 (68.3%) of those who sat the Leaving Certificate entered some form of higher education.” (ESRI/HEA statement released on the 12 March 2006).

The problem with reintroducing fees is that the people just above the income limits for grants will face hardship, just as they did when fees were last in place. If anything it is those from the commuter towns of Ireland, that will bear the brunt of the reintroduction of third level fees most, and those families do not send their children to private second level schools, contrary to the myths that are out there. For many of those families third level fees of several thousand euros per year per child will mean a real financial barrier to sending their children to college. For those that think that the same Government that will brings back fees as a revenue raising measure will also increase the higher education grant limits, I would say that that is very unlikely to happen, and there will always be those just above the income limits facing hardship.

For those students from socio-economic backgrounds where they will qualify for the grant, the reintroduction of fees will mean the reintroduction of the psychological barrier to going to third level that was there when fees were in place. That there was a psychological barrier when fees were in place is surely demonstrated by the increase by 500 per cent of those going to college from the community college in Neilstown, in my constituency of Dublin Mid West. The present percentage of 6th year students going on to third level in that school is a third.

Ann,

You are not talking about an increase from 1 to 5 students in Collinstown Park Community College here. The increase has been to a third of 6th students, so assuming there is an average of just under 200 6th year students each year that would mean an increase from 12 to 60 students. The more students that go to college from a school the more likely there is a domino effect whereby those seeing their peers go to college think of themselves as potential college students too.

And Ann “middle class” is nowadays used as a term to cover the bulk of our population and as an excuse to target the middle income PAYE workers in a disproportionate way while leaving our unfair taxation system in place and many wealthy people paying hardly any tax whatsoever. If you want the wealthy to contribute to the cost of primary, second level and third level education, the fairest way to get them to do so is through our tax system.

This is what Brian Fleming, the Principal of Collinstown College in Neilstown, had to say about the possible reintroduction of third level fees in an interview with the Irish Times last year:

“If anything, it would be a retrograde step to re-introduce them. Fees might be aimed at well-off families, but the income limits could easily be revised downwards. We’re working hard to encourage a culture of ambition among kids in the area. The absence of fees can only help that.” (Irish Times article ‘Adding up the real cost of free fees’ August 8 2008).

joanna tuffy, The labour party gave free fees to farmers and self employed who for many years were able to cook their books in order for their offspring to qualify, All you did was give free fees in order to make it legal for them,
Children been sent to fee paying private secondary schools is not a myth I know them up close and personal.

Maire T.

You responded to a detailed and well thought-out point by Joanna Tuffy with first irreverence and then anecdote.

There’s a health care debate in the States that style of argument may fit in better with.

now now Steve ! , I detest crony capitalism as much as I detest socialism. Both forms of government tend to end in chaos.

Liam, it’s not even that it’s just that phrases like “socialist side of the fence” does nothing to move a debate along.

To be honest Liam, what bothers me the most in the poor cultural legacy the boom times have left Ireland with.

DesJay says: The change in charges for university courses reflects the rise of right wing ideology in government.

It’s not the only think that reflects our lurch to the right.

The “Other Liam” says:

A University education is a privilege not a right, it is not the State’s responsibility to give you a degree!! The rather transparent attempt to connect the knowledge economy with charging for fees is absolute nonsense, it is the worst kind of school-boy twaddle.

Ignoring the inanity of this statement (no offence “Other Liam”), it’s the boorish sentiment that I would normally have associated with British or American conservatives, where one self-interested world view is taken as a universal truth. Is this kind of thing on the rise in Ireland? Is Irish cognitive thinking suffering? Or am I just getting older?

Liam : I didn’t know what a toxic asset was five years ago. Has the last 12 months taught us interventionism is wrong? I think we have to take a more nuanced view.

On the two world views – I know what neo-liberal economics is (the rational market etc.), but can you really put European Social Democracy, as a label, on France, Germany and Scandinavia; all of whom have different economies and models?

As I’ve regurgitated here before, the Scandinavian model is clearly the one to aspire to. For economic growth and stability, quality of life and work/life balance, sustainability and environment, education and health it is the system to follow (Interestingly, university is free here in Sweden for all citizens and residents – however they have removed free education for foreign students this year).

I’m not sure if that model is achievable for Ireland. I do know that our “if you’re not me get fucked” attitude is the first stumbling block.

In short I do not agree with the reintroduction of fees. Free fees increases access to higher level education, full stop!

I have benefitted enormously from the free fees regime – I completed a three year degree course and a masters, then went on to complete all my professional exams and am now a fully qualified accountant. I never received any grant in college, and can only assume I was just over the income threshold (how I was above it I still don’t know, with only one factory wage in the house). If it wasn’t for the free fees I honestly hand on heart could not be sure that I would have been able to go to college. Or if my parents had sent me, it would definitely have made a huge struggle at home. For people who come in just above the income threshold, fees will be a massive burden and will cause severe financial hardship in some households. I think it is very sad to have this happen.
For those that say university education is a privilege and you should pay for it – am I not essentially paying for it now by the massive taxes I pay? My friends who didn’t go to college and are in lower-earning jobs pay a LOT less tax than me. I would prefer to be paying the higher taxes now, rather than imposing the burden on my parents at the time and as a result perhaps never actually getting the chance to go to college and get the job in the first place! By the time I finish my career, I will have paid way more in taxes than I would ever have paid in fees. But if fees are reintroduced and not as many people go to college, this means less higher earners in the country which means less income in the long run for the Government.

I really admired Ireland for the ‘free’ third level education it provided and think it will be a sad day when the fees return, putting third level education back into the realm of the rich again.

Patrick Hennessy: On the issue of free education I believe nothing should be free. Ample evidence is around to show that people attach no value to something that is free.

What does that even mean Patrick?

Abundance leads people to attach no value to something, and scarcity the opposite. Perhaps you should view this debate in those terms.

At 18 a student is legally an adult and their parents have no obligation to support them. Most parents who can will help out, but some will refuse. Assuming the parents income prevents the student qualifying for a grant he/she is totally dependant on part time work – if any still exists these days. Reintroduction of fees will only worsen this situation. Surely it is time to treat students like adults and put in place a system that disregards parental income. Or else oblige parents to support their adult children while at college.

I dont know Sarah , maybe its time to treat parents like adults and stop expecting other people to clear up after them. If some parents put their sun holidays ahead of their kids interests be they 8 or 18 , the solution can hardly be to take more money off the parents that do care?

Bryan, you originally asked:
1- How much of a priority is education here?
2- Is the thinking behind the proposed knowledge based economy about the quality of education as opposed to the quantity of people who receive it?”

As to the first – I certainly thought it was a priority when I was in school & college. It certainly helped me immeasurably that it was subsidized. My siblings and I would have been stuck otherwise.
As to the second: “Knowledge-based-economy” is just a slogan. The introduction of fees for college isn’t to enhance the quality of what’s provided. Fees are being introduced because THE COUNTRY IS BROKE!!!! UTTERLY BROKE!!!! I get the feeling reading some of the posts here, that there are some of you who don’t realize what exactly you’re caught in the middle of. Ireland is utterly broke, like no other time in its history. The government is casting around for any and every source of revenue, while trying to slash costs, and distract furiously from its culpability in creating the mess. An economic model that existed over the last decade was based primarily on credit-fueled consumer spending, and equity generated by outrageous bubble house-prices. This has dramatically deflated and collapsed, causing:
1- Loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs
2- Loss of billions of EUR in equity, corporate & private
3- Loss of millions in annual tax revenue
4- And there is NO other economic model in place at this time, and no plan for one.

I personally think, based on experience with subsidized and fee-based systems, that education up to 3d level should be subsidized by the State, and access to it should be based on merit, not on money. I’ve met far too many people in business with graduate and masters degrees, who were as dumb as a sackful of hammers. But they went to a first-rate university because they could afford to. And their degree lends them a legitimacy that they don’t deserve.

Patrick in Bangkok – I’d disagree that kids drop out because education is free and they don’t appreciate it. If you have to break out the books and sweat to get in, then it’s certainly not free from your perspective. But if your Dad pays for it because he’s a bank manager and can afford it – well then it didn’t cost you anything, did it? That’s how I see it.

Politically my own viewpoint is further to the right than many here. But I’m adamant about subsidized education. I’ve seen things go too far the other direction, where everything is reduced to a commodity, and quality of education really really suffers.

But on the upside, it’s amusing to see how sarcastic we are about each others opinions. I used to moderate a political messageboard a few years ago. This really takes me back.

Bryan, you’ve finally found a topic that gets people more wound up than immigration. Good work!

In 1999, the Smurfit Graduate Business School at UCD was ranked # 41 in the world, in the Financial Times annual rankings of business schools.

By 2009, it had fallen to # 99.

The FT rankings only go up to 100, so it’s safe to assume that Smurfit will drop off altogether next year.

All this discussion of fees or no fees misses the central point : the quality of an Irish university education has collapsed in the past decade. This has to be addressed, and additional investment will presumably have to come in part from fees.

The statement that lower socio-economic groups did not increase their participation in third level post suspension of fees is untrue. Experts have produced the figures to refute that statement.

On a more general point there should not be any cuts in education since we need to be educated to compete in future. In addition resources devoted to education give the highest rate of return. Making public policy on the basis of the begrudgery and schauenfreude depicted in some of the contributions to this debate would be a great mistake.