Stretch the money to last 'til summer

If you're contemplating a third-level career this year, you'd be well advised to do a crash course in money management.

Managing your cash and ensuring that you have enough money to live on throughout the year is an essential aspect of adult life. In the weeks before college starts you should sit down and work out a weekly budget for yourself. Barry Kehoe, director of student services at DCU, has been saying for years that if you're poor enough to qualify for a third-level maintenance grant you're too poor to go to university. The sad fact is that nothing has changed - the maxim continues to hold true. Up to 50 per cent of students attending third-level colleges qualify for student grants under the HEA scheme, according to the Department of Education and Science. In 1996 the State spent a total of £91 million on third-level grants.

This academic year, a further £15 million is being set aside to cover the costs of the maintenance grants for students attending PLC courses. It may sound a lot of money, but the reality is a full maintenance grant for a student living away from home amounts to only £1,652 per annum. Based on a 36-week year this breaks down to £45.90 per week.

If you live less than 15 miles away from your college, you may qualify for the full adjacent rate which is only £660 per annum or £18.33 per week - just enough to cover your bus or train fares, perhaps, and a sandwich at lunch time.

It's difficult to see how a student with no other sources of income could possibly manage on these amounts of money.

In Dublin, for example, rents alone are reckoned to be about £50 to £65 per week for a single room. DCU estimates the cost of seven days' partial board at £318 per month, and you've still got to get yourself back and forth to college, eat during the day and buy books, clothes and other incidentals. DCU's Barry Kehoe reckons that students living away from home need about £4,470 for an eight-and-a-half-month academic year, while those living at home require around £2,500. Adrian Langan, president of TCD's Students Union, points to the inadequacy of the grant and notes that "you can't live on it without subsidies from your parents".

Many parents have to dig deep into their pockets to help finance their children's way through college, often going into debt to do so.

The abolition of fees has released some of the pressure on middle-income parents, Barry Kehoe observes, but it has done nothing for the people who qualify for maintenance grants. Part-time work is a favourite option for cash-poor students anxious to supplement their incomes. USI's Poverty Survey 1997/98 shows that more than half of all students (57 per cent) now have part-time employment.

"Due to the high cost of living many students must work to finance themselves through college," the survey says. "This high cost of living causes students to fall behind in their course of study and also fall into financial debt." Almost 60 per cent of the students involved in part-time work admitted that their work interfered with their studies in a negative way. TCD's Adrian Langan attributes high firstyear attrition rates to the fact that many students are forced to work to subsidise their grants.

And even when students do continue to pass exams, Kehoe points out that having a parttime job may make the difference between gaining a 2:1 or a 2:2 degree. This may not sound important when you're starting off at college, but you won't be able to do research with a 2:2 and are unlikely to be considered for jobs with blue chip companies.