Financial concern of students shows need for proper loan scheme for third level

The Irish Times Results Helpdesk continued to receive queries from students and parents yesterday covering a wide range of difficulties.

A number of students who had a CAO offer with which they were happy academically, contacted our guidance counsellors about financial, registration and accommodation issues.

Financial Issues: Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi), the grants awarding body, has been processing student grant applications since May and will still accept applications, even though its application closing date was August 1st. If you feel you are eligible for a grant, apply today – but don't expect an early decision. Tomorrow's College Choice will deal with Susi in more detail.

Colleges award academic scholarships to students who secure very high points across all courses, but there is no way of confirming yet if you will get such an award unless the college in question can now do so, based on your points score.

Some callers who had secured high points indicated their decision about accepting their place in 2014 was contingent on such a scholarship.

We received questions about the viability of part-time work to fund students. The extent to which you can realistically undertake an undergraduate degree and work part time, if you can find a job, is questionable.

Trying to balance work and study is one of the main reasons students drop out of college each year. We need a proper student loan scheme in Ireland, a basic support service provided in most EU countries.

Up to 12 per cent of our population is now made up of the “new Irish,” many of whom have progressed through our schools seeing themselves as no different to their fellow students. Many, including some who contacted our Helpdesk, are now discovering their education stops at the Leaving Cert.

Because they do not hold an Irish passport, they have to pay fees of up to €10,000. Unfortunately, our counsellors can only tell them that funding is available from Galway University Foundation to fund a scholarship at NUI Galway for one student from a non-EU country who has completed at least the final two years of their secondary school studies in Ireland, but who is not eligible for free fees or the EU rate. If other colleges have specific supports for these students, we are happy to pass it on.

Another anomaly which has arisen is of a student from a disadvantaged background who won a scholarship to a private college, but cannot get a maintenance grant, which is only applicable to publicly funded colleges. A case was before the courts on this issue in recent years, in which one student in this situation secured his grant, but there was no general change to the regulation.

Registration: Some inquiries were about what happens next after accepting a place.

Some colleges have already been in contact with their prospective first-year students after online acceptance. All colleges will rapidly invite you to register with them. For arts degrees and some others, you will be invited to finalise your first year subject choices.

If you delay registering, some of your subject choices may no longer be available. In colleges where students had the option of preselecting subjects on the CAO application, those choices are already secured.

Hear/Dare: The biggest issue of contention on the helpdesk over recent days has been how colleges are applying the Hear/ Dare schemes. These allow colleges to add additional CAO points to an applicant's Leaving Cert total, based on having met criteria as either economically disadvantaged or having a diagnosed disability.

Many students have contacted us asking why they have not received an expected offer. It seems colleges are implementing this scheme in a totally arbitrary manner. Not only is there no agreed or transparent set of criteria between colleges for how these schemes are implemented, but it appears that there are no such criteria between faculties within colleges.

The transparency of the CAO application system needs to be extended to all schemes where students get concessionary points.

Available places: At noon yesterday, the CAO released the available places list of courses that colleges have yet to fill. Any existing CAO applicant who has yet to secure a satisfactory offer may place an advertised available place in any slot on their application record.

The CAO will accept new applications from any person interested in courses only if they are listed on vacant places.

If you are still holding out hope for any course on your existing list of preferences, make sure to place the newly introduced course below this course.

Tomorrow:

Susi grant process.

Post any queries about results or offers to the free online Irish Times Results 2014 Help Desk at irishtimess.com/results