UNIVERSITY College, Dublin, has postponed plans to reserve 2 per cent of its intake for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The plans, under which the students would be paid extra "top up" grants, were to have started this autumn, but will not now be introduced before 1997.
A spokesman for UCD said the postponement was due to "a more realistic appraisal of the circumstances required for implementing such a scheme". It follows concern about the availability of the necessary resources.
Under the plan, which is being developed by the college's equality and participation committee, up to 70 places a year would be set aside for disadvantaged students. Participating students would be paid up to £1,500 a year on top of the normal higher education grant, to ease the financial pressures on their families.
Students would have to have the minimum entry requirements, but would not have to attain the CAO points levels required for a particular course.
After the proposals were developed by the committee last year, some departments pointed out they would need additional resources to help participating students make the necessary social and cultural adaptation to university.
UCD and Trinity College have the lowest proportion of students from the bottom socio economic groups of any colleges in the State. Some 2.2 per cent of students in both colleges come from semiskilled or unskilled manual worker backgrounds, compared with over 5 per cent in UCC, Maynooth and all the RTCs.
Last year, the Higher Education Authority recommended that universities should set aside 500 new places a year for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. A number of universities have developed access schemes, the bestknown is the BITE (Ballymun in Third Level Education), project operated by Dublin City University.
UCD students' union has pointed out that a FAS trainee gets £90 a week, compared to unemployment assistance of £64. However, the maximum student grant is only £42 a week for the academic year.
