There is a light that never goes out.
Dylan O’Connell.
I was young. Two years younger than I am today. Ambition guided me as a I fought and pitched into the national press. It was 2016. A year defined by the political shocks of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union and an election of a certain US President, for myself, journalistic career was carved out here at home.
My role? For someone who fell into the medium accidentally, I was captured in the student struggle. Articles on student housing and homelessness and fees spread across national news as my work reached peak heights. I felt apart of a conversation as Vincent Brown held my paper in his hands.
Two years later, I was on the bus home from college. Now 22 and a Masters student in UCC, my head was taken on seeing a brightly lit poster admits the overcrowded bus.
#SaveOurSpark it read. On further inspection it read on my own work, yet so far removed but tuned into the cords. Neither a cover nor a copy, it read of the similar work, yet
The campaign; which is centered on the calling for the Irish government to increase state funding to third level in Ireland as opposed to the alternative €5,000 fees on third level.
Nostalgic and surprised, I became drawn on my original work.
Two years previously, it was the same calls as up to 5,000 students gathered in Dublin under the hashtag #EducationIs to demand further state funding into third level in Ireland.
The protest was organized under the ‘Coalition for the Publically Funded Higher Level Education’ including SIPTU, IMPACT, Teacher’s Union of Ireland (TUI) and the National Youth Council of Ireland. These calls were echoed from the publication of the Cassels Report in July in 2016.
It was my first big event with a national paper. A story stretching from the streets to the boardroom. I was captivated and surprised at the scales of the problems unfolding back then.
At the time of the original protest, Third Level Education needed an investment of €600m by 2020 and €1 Billion by 2031 to meet the expanding numbers and funding costs and shortfalls. That year it was noted the that had been massive increases in attendances in the sector, with a year on year increase of 18% from 2008 to 2014, with a total increases estimated to reach 30% by 2026.
In 2017, it was followed up that there would be an additional 40,000 in college in Ireland by 2030.
Previous to this there had been cuts from €722.8m in 2007 to €522.2m in 2014.
Proposed remedies were polarizing. Three solutions have been proposed in the report. A cautious approach of retaining the model of €3,000 a year is presented, while it is also suggested an increase to fees of €4,000 to €5,000 per academic year or switching to a publically funded model by the Irish Government where the current 64% annual investment will be increased to 72%.
In 2016 the government pledged an additional €36.5 million for 2017 an €160 million over the next three years after as stated, this still was not enough.
As of 2018, the state funded model still from 2016 remains. Split between fee increases and government funding, Ireland lags behind Europe, the amount paid by the Irish State is below the EU Average of 79%.
In 2016, the question probed was reflected on the government as it is today. In my interviews with the Union of Students Ireland, the loans and fee increases where heavily criticized.
Student loans is a model which has united criticism from across the board. Former USI President Annie Hoey at the time of the original investigation was also quick to criticize the system, announcing,
“The loan scheme option put forward in the Cassells report is unsustainable. It will increase emigration, saddle young people with a mortgage-modelled debt and widen the gap between the rich and the poor” and called for a strong show of support for the protest.
Then Trinity College Dublin Education Officer Dale Whelehan was also firm in his opposition, explaining that the proposed system, “seems like equal access to all students of all socio-economic backgrounds, it is short-lived” concluding that, “The solution does not lie in mimicking a broken system”
On a case study basis, a full extent of a possible systematic increased was shown.
In my original investigation, a USI student survey of 870 students; 87% of student’s fear of having to drop out of education because of the costs, 58.1% miss meals and 38% miss meals to try and fund college. In October 2015 a further survey revealed that 63% of students would not be available to attend college if fees are to go up with the costs. leading to a strain on students mental health with. 73.1% of students saying the high cost of college causes them anxiety or stress.
My unpublished case studies revealed a more human extent of the issue.
Annie; a Third Year Arts student at UCC, was very open about her experiences commenting that, “I have found it very hard to keep up with the cost of college. I am lucky to get a grant to help with the cost of living but it is still a struggle” commenting that the SUSI grant scheme has given her a lifeline to education, “If I lost my grant I would have to drop out of college. It feeds me. It buys my bus ticket home to see my family and to get to my weekend job. I have friends who fell just outside the grant threshold and their parents are so stressed. One friend has 3 brothers in college at once! That’s €9000 a year” a system which has added to the parents burden as, “his parents don’t want them to take out loans as they don’t want their sons strapped with debt so they’ve taken out a loan instead. They do it because they love their children and they don’t want a lifetime burden of debt on them so young”
Finishing, Annie added that any increases would greatly restrict her sibling’s ambitions of third year.
“I am from a farming background and I have two younger siblings. My parents are really concerned that if fees go up and loans are brought in that my siblings won’t go to college. My brother hopes to take over the farm but he wanted to go to college first. If he is going to have a loan hanging over him I don’t think he’ll take the risk. Farming is tricky enough these days without having college debts looming over you. Without the grant I couldn’t go to college and when I hear about the maintenance grant being abolished in the UK I get really worried for what will happen to those of us here in Ireland who desperately rely on the grant. How soon after fees and loans are introduced here before they slash the grant too? That will devastate rural families”
Another student; Liam a mature business student in GMIT, was also very concerned by the rising costs of education adding that you can see the effects on students, “Looking at the cost of college around me it is crazy. I didn’t go to college in the 90s when it was made free- I went off to England instead. And now I can’t believe how expensive it is. I see students every day in GMIT stressed out if their minds. Their parents are paying the fees and then the students are working themselves to try and pay for the cost of living. My wife is working so I am lucky she can support me. We knew college was going to be an expensive few years but we were prepared. The younger students around me are almost shell shocked by how expensive college is! They are so worried about what will happen to them if fees are increased and how they will cope with trying to pay off a loan on top of getting a good job and competing in the property market”
Finishing, Liam reiterated Annie’s message for future generations adding that, “I have two kids under the age of 10 and I am terrified for their future. I want them to be able to go to college if that’s what they want. The thought of them having a loan hanging over them when they’ll be so young makes me feel ill. This study now, pay later model sounds awfully like the buy now pay later motto that was flung around about property during the boom times. And look at what happened there. I want to invest in my children’s future. That’s why I went back to college so I could upskill. I want that to be an option for them but not one that is tied to debt. My wife and I pay taxes and we want the state to use those taxes to educate people. It is an investment”
Student loans is a highly debated idea which has led to a wave of questioning from across the world. In the United Kingdom, an Institute of Fiscal Studies report outlined that 70% of 2015 graduates are not fully expected to repay their college loans. In the United States Americans owe $1.3 Trillion in Student Loans with more than seven million in default.
An ultimate fear of the student loans option is that high fees will deter people from applying from education in Ireland. Currently, 50% of students from working class schools apply to third level schools, while middle-class schools have the highest participation rate in third-level with 94% of students applying.
While there has been some strides in this region across the last two years, the shortfalls are remaining. Education can never be undermined within Irish policy making. Whenever at the height of the Celtic Tiger to depths of the recession.
You could speak of economic value and calculate a person’s rate of return from education. Or you could look at the rates of Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland. Ireland is the second highest globalized country in the world with Forbes listing Ireland as the fourth best country in the world to do business with. This isn’t just down to the low corporate tax measures, but the work force and education provided.
No matter what the hashtag or message. Be it #EducationIs or #SaveOurSpark. Education will always be needed. We live in a growing geopolitical world, accompanied with an expanding workforce and Ireland has to compete.
It’s a matter of standing up for ourselves and keeping doors open; for the world and those around us. Stepping off the bus to the chaos of a local secondary school, you can see the problems are real. The only thing will the solutions be made real.
